Aberrant
by Readalot999
Summary: The secret Dimitri's been keeping blows up in his face and Carpathian rules are being broken. Final chapter up! Apologies- hadn't noticed that some formatting and paragraph breaks had gone missing- that's been corrected now
1. Chapter 1

"Dima."

Dimitri turned in the darkness, opening his arms before he was even aware of it, and a small figure went into them and pressed close. He shut his eyes as colors and emotions swirled bright for the first time in a long while and he savored the realization that he was not alone. He had just been wondering how much longer he could bear being alone.

He didn't know how long they had been standing there holding each other when at last the dark head on his shoulder tilted back. Dimitri found himself gazing into his own eyes.

"Hello, big brother."

"Shura," he murmured, using her childhood nickname. He lifted a hand, pushed the dark hair from the girl's face. "What are you doing here? It's not safe."

The girl drew back a bit, but not enough to leave the circle of his arms. Her blue eyes, identical to his own, bored into him. "Where is 'safe' nowadays? And do you really need to ask what I'm doing here? "

He sighed. "I wasn't aware I was projecting my misery so far. If anything I was trying to keep it in."

"You think I don't know that? Give me some credit, Dima." Her eyes searched his, taking in more than his physical appearance. Much more. "And for you to admit you're miserable --- " her voice trailed off a moment. "Sit. " she said to him.

Dimitri did, keeping his arm around her as they settled onto a the gnarled remains of a tree trunk. Aleksandra stayed close, slipped her small hand into his. She had ever been able to read him. Even as a wee little bit, all eyes and unruly dark hair, she had been able to sense him near or far. As she got older he began to get the feeling his sister knew him better than he knew himself. That she had come precisely at this moment was proof positive.

"How bad?" she asked softly, though she didn't need to. She could feel the darkness in him, the chaos of spirit, the unnamable thing hovering too close. It made her want to scream.

She watched as her brother swallowed hard, made an enormous effort at getting his breathing under control. "You shouldn't be here, Shura," he gritted through clenched teeth, at the same time gripping her hand like he would never let go. "If I end up hurting you…"

Aleksandra frowned, truly concerned now. Her brother looked frightful, his inner hurt now manifesting physically, which was rare for Carpathians. Only the ones who had been through the absolute worst wore their damage on the outside. She put her arm around him now as he doubled over in what seemed to be physical pain.

"What the hell, Dima?" Aleksandra's voice took on an alarmed tone. "What is this all about? How can you be this close to turning when you have a lifemate?"

He shook his head. "Too young. Can't claim her."

"Skyler is older than me! Eighteen now for sure."

"She needs more time. She's been hurt." His face wrenched as more pain tore through him. Shura felt an echo of it ripple through her and recoiled, gasping. When she straightened anger took over.

"We all have our sob stories, Dimitri. She's had two years to get used to the idea."

It was a valid argument. It had been two years since Skyler had fully restored colors and emotions to him. She had been too young then and he had chosen to wait before he bonded her to him. He had not told his sister that over the past year the colors had begun to fade again but he suspected she knew. Aleksandra almost always seemed to know and that was why she was here now, at the precise moment when it felt he would lose them for good. Shura's presence had always had the power to drive the darkness back, at least temporarily. This time, however, the relief had been short-lived --- almost like she were a drug he had developed a resistance to. Skyler would bring real relief, _could_ bring real relief. But she had a past. Well… as Aleksandra said, they all had a past, but Skyler was his lifemate and she came first.

He shook his head. "I won't force this on her."

"If you won't then I will !"

"No !," Dimitri turned to her, his grip turning painful. "You can't force this on her. It would kill her."

"I seriously doubt that."

"Promise me, Shura!"

"No! I won't promise !" His sister's eyes shone with tears but her expression and voice were adamant. She literally ground her teeth as she spoke. "I'm not sitting idly by as you turn!"

"It has to be her choice --- it _has _to be_ ---- her choice_…"

Aleksandra watched in horror as her brother's eyes rolled back in their sockets and he toppled over onto the ground, his long body beginning to convulse, his skin rippling.

"Dima! _Dima!_"


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you jeanerie and magicspromise for my first-time-ever reviews_

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Gabriel came running as his wife's voice rose an octave. His heart jumped to his throat as he saw Francesca on the floor cradling Skyler in her arms. The girl was sobbing.

"What is it? What happened?"

His wife lifted worried eyes to him. "I found her on the floor. She's hysterical. Something about Dimitri."

"He's turning," Skyler sobbed, clutching at Francesca's dress. "He's turning…"

"Hush," Gabriel soothed, bending over her. The eyes he turned to Francesca were dark with concern. "There must be some explanation."

"He's turning Gabriel ! I can feel it !"

"Calm down, we'll get to the bottom of this. It'll be all right …"

An explosion knocked Gabriel off his feet, sending him sprawling bodily over his wife and adopted daughter. As he rolled to a crouch, fangs lengthening, preparing for battle, he saw that the explosion had taken out the entire wall of his living room. Through the cloud of dust he saw the outline of a moving figure stepping through the threshold . As the cloud cleared he found himself staring at a young girl in jeans, long-limbed as a colt, with dark hair and disturbingly familiar blue eyes. And on the floor ---

"Dimitri !" Skyler cried out and scrambled to her feet to go to him.

Gabriel made a grab for her, restraining her forcefully. "Wait ! This could be a trap! It might not be him."

Their visitor turned to him. "You're right. It's not Dimitri. Not anymore. He's turning. Thanks to the lot of you."

* * *

Gregori straightened and looked up at his brother. He had materialized within seconds of the explosion, had been instantly aware of what was amiss. "He's definitely turning," he said to Gabriel, his voice grim. "She's not lying about that."

"And why would I lie?" said a long suffering voice just behind him.

Gabriel ignored her. "How long does he have?"

"Not long. Hours. Maybe minutes."

Aleksandra moved in front of Gregori, arms crossed. When she spoke her tone of voice did not reflect the fact that she was a teenager facing down two ancients, each of them at least double her size. "Satisfied?" she said to Gabriel.

The tall Carpathian ran his hands through his hair in agitation. "There's got to be some way…"

"We do have choices." The youngster seemed remarkably calm given the situation. " We can take his head off. Or Skyler accepts him as a lifemate. As in now. "

A small whimper drew their attention. Skyler, Francesca's arms wrapped around her, turned her face into her adopted mother's shoulder. Gabriel shifted distraught eyes to Dimitri's sister. "I can't force this on her."

A sudden swirling mist and a clap of power from behind Aleksandra made everyone turn. A figure materialized. It was Jaxon, sword raised, a look of utter shock on her face. There was an audible gasp as everyone, including her, realized she couldn't move.

"Put your weapon down," Aleksandra said mildly to the newcomer. "I'm not a threat to you. This isn't about you." An unseen force moved Jaxon away and settled her gently to the floor.

Suddenly Lucian's lifemate could move again but her first instinct was to reprise her attack in a charging rush. Gabriel called her name, telling her to stay back, but no sooner were the words out of his mouth when Jaxon was re-frozen, this time in mid-stride.

"Put your weapon down," Aleksandra repeated, an edge to her mild tone. "Before I rethink my not being a threat to you."

Jaxon's face went red with fury and the moment she was released she threw herself at the younger girl once more.

And missed completely as Aleksandra sidestepped so quickly and neatly noone even saw her move. Jaxon went sprawling and launched herself at the girl yet again. This time Aleksandra uttered a sigh and made the tiniest flicking motion with her forefinger, no more than it would take to flick away a bug. The blond woman literally went flying across the room and landed on the sofa on the opposite end, her breath knocked out of her. Aleksandra's eyebrows lifted just a bit and her reaction was audible to all on the common Carpathian wavelength.

_As if. _

Then she was turning back to Gabriel like nothing happened. She didn't notice – or didn't care --- that everyone was gaping at her. She didn't even seem concerned that Lucian had appeared, radiating waves of fury. "You were saying?"

Gabriel shook his head a little to clear it. He staved off his brother's rage with a raised finger, a gesture that spoke silently of the urgency of the matter at hand. Lucian backed off at once, though not without brushing Aleksandra's mind with his anger. To his shock, the girl flicked off his mental touch as easily as she had his wife's physical attack. She didn't even spare him a glance.

Gabriel spoke. "I can't force Skyler to accept Dimitri as her lifemate. She's been through too much and she's too young. She needs more time to get used to the idea."

"She's had plenty. Much more time than most."

Gabriel fell silent, knowing it was true. His gaze swung over to his beloved daughter, who turned her face into Francesca's shoulder again. He found himself shaking his head. "It has to be her choice."

Aleksandra's blue eyes, so much like Dimitri's, narrowed. "Let me put it this way. Do you really want a vampire warrior of my brother's battle calibre? Let me assure you he will be an outstanding vampire."

Gabriel swallowed. The only Carpathian warrior with a more fearsome reputation was Lucian, who himself was silent, soothing his humiliated wife. But he had made a promise to Skyler. He and Lucian both. With difficulty, he shook his head again. "It has to be Skyler's choice."

The girl's eyes flashed but she didn't bother to argue further. Taking a calming breath, she turned to Skyler. "Well?" she said softly. "What's it going to be, papa's girl?"

Skyler wavered under the icy blue gaze but she found her voice and her resolve. "I don't want to be forced to subjugate myself to a male. To anyone." Her gaze skittered to Dimitri's still form and her face crumpled for a moment. "He's so strong, so powerful, and I'm not. I'm not ready."

"You don't get it, do you?" Aleksandra raged. "What, are you dense? There is no time left. He's turning, damn you! You would curse my brother for eternity because you can't even fake a backbone? Stop whining and take a stand !"

Both Gabriel and Lucian closed in with a growl. Aleksandra did not move a finger but suddenly the legendary Daratrazanoff twins were immobile, unable to move anything but their eyes. Suddenly _all_ in the room were immobile, except for Francesca and Skyler. Aleksandra's eyes flashed blue fire.

A moan came from the body on the floor and everyone's gaze shifted to Dimitri. Or what used to be Dimitri. His face had already begun to change, the jaw narrowing, the brow becoming more prominent, his other teeth approaching the length of his fangs. His visage rippled once more and he writhed, straining his chains to breaking point, an unholy keening issuing from his throat. Aleksandra went to him at once, her hand unsheathing a short sword noone had noticed at her hip, hidden in the leg of her jeans. Everyone gasped, realizing her intent.

"Choose, Skyler!" she roared.

Every ugly thing ever done to her flashed through Skyler's mind. Being subjugated. Controlled. Abused. Skyler turned anguished eyes first to the figure on the floor then to Aleksandra's unforgiving gaze. The pull she felt from the lifebond was fierce … but her memories were fiercer. Deeper. She had sworn to herself never to be that helpless again. Never _ever _to be in a position where she had no choice, no say. It would drive her back into the dark place. "I can't._ I won't._ Gabriel and Lucian promised me I would never be forced into this. I'm sorry…"

Francesca's eyes were full of horror, knowing that her daughter, with those words, was not only damning Dimitri but herself as well. She tightened her arms around Skyler, raising her hand to shield her daughter's eyes from the sight of her lifemate being beheaded by his own sister. Aleksandra, all her attention on her morphing brother now, raised the sword above her head. Time seemed suspended for a moment as she held it there, her expression unreadable, her mind closed to everyone. Then as the beast breaking through her brother shrieked she brought the blade down in a blinding arc.

All in the room staggered back as suddenly it seemed there was lightning without light, an explosion with no sound, a colossal wave of energy undulating from where it shouldn't have. Skyler screamed and Francesca held her tight, rocking her, squeezing her eyes shut as the light-that-was-not-light flared to sickening intensity and the wave of energy swelled with such force it knocked her over. Knocked everyone over.

Just as quickly, it faded . Everyone could move and they all felt the energy die off abruptly, almost like someone had flipped off a switch.

Skyler kept screaming in Francesca's embrace and Gabriel crawled to her, wrapping strong arms around them both.

"I can't feel him!" Skyler shrieked hysterically. "I can't feel him, Gabriel!"

Behind them Gregori had gotten to his feet and was walking with slow steps to where Aleksandra was on her knees beside her brother, her head down, hands braced on the floor as if to keep her upright. He frowned. Something wasn't right. He stooped beside the girl, took in Dimitri's still form. The warrior's features had returned to normal and he looked almost like he was …

Gregori gasped. Sleeping! Dimitri looked like he was sleeping and, by the gods, his head was still on his shoulders! He reached out and placed his hand on Dimitri's chest, finding a heartbeat steady and strong. He turned in shock to the girl, who raised glazed eyes to him. Her cheeks were streaked with bloody tears and she wiped at more blood flowing from her nose. "Will somebody shut her up?" she said wearily as Skyler continued to scream in the background. "She's giving me a headache."

It was a moment before a stunned Gregori could speak. "What have you done?" he said hoarsely. "_What have you done?"_


	3. Chapter 3

Dimitri swam to consciousness, struggling to pull himself out of what seemed to be a very dense fog. At last he pushed back earth, came up into air. He frowned as he sat up, taking in the enclosed space, the smell of smoke.

"It's about bloody time."

He blinked. That was his sister's voice. But what would Aleksandra be doing here? What was this place? He turned. She was sitting behind him on the dirt floor, her back to the corner of what seemed to be a small room with no windows, the only light coming from a brazier on the far end. Maybe it was the flicker of the flame that made it so, but his sister's gaze seemed more intense than usual. "Shura? What happened?, " he asked over his shoulder, uneasy that he didn't seem to know for himself. "Where are we?"

"What do you remember?"

"Not much. You and I talking."

"How do you feel?"

He blinked. "Fine," he replied with some surprise. "I feel… fine."

"You sound surprised. Can you think of any reason you shouldn't be feeling fine?"

Dimitri gazed at her, frowning. There was something he wasn't remembering, something he wasn't getting. Something that was missing.

"Skyler," he breathed and a sudden dread gripped him. "I cannot feel her…"

"Relax," Aleksandra cut in smoothly. "She's fine."

"I cannot feel her, Shura. Something is wrong !"

"Dima," she said softly, catching his arm when he would have scrambled to his feet. "There's something you need to know." Her brother stilled at her tone of voice and after a moment's hesitation slowly settled back down beside her. Aleksandra hated the look of dread on his face.

"What is it? Give it to me straight."

She gave him a glare. "When have you ever known me to sugarcoat anything?"

"Just tell me."

* * *

_"Mikhail, this is serious."_

_"I agree. Have you tried talking to her, Gabriel? Have you probed her mind?"_

_"That's another thing. She's closed to us. Shut us off completely. Noone's ever been able to do that before."_

_"Is she who she says she is?"_

_"She seems to be. She looks like Dimitri at any rate and for the life of me I can't think of any other reason for her to do what she did . Dimitri's such a recluse, has always been so close-mouthed … I never even knew he had a sister."_

_"I didn't, either. Is he all right?"_

_"He hasn't regained consciousness yet. Other than that Gregori says he seems to be fine."_

_"And Skyler ?"_

_"Physically she's all right. But the rest of it - I don't know, Mikhail."_

_"And the girl? Is she still there?"_

_"Yes."_

_"You think you can keep her there until I arrive? I need to see someone first."_

_"Just make it quick. You 've always had Dimitri's loyalty, but after this? I don't know. And with this girl, there's no telling."_

_"I'll be there as soon as I can."_

* * *

Dimitri held his head in his hands and stared at the brazier, red and orange flames spitting, crackling, dancing. His mind was whirling so much that it was with considerable difficulty that he bit out a question. "How did I get to this place if I was beginning to turn?"

"I brought you here," Aleksandra said. "This is Gabriel's house - no do not give me that face, Dimitri. I don't give a shit about your pride. Not when the alternative is my brother turning vampire. I brought you here and I asked Skyler to choose."

The expression her brother turned on her was more than mildly accusatory.

"Okay. I didn't ask. I demanded that Gabriel make her take you as a lifemate but he was too much of a wimp to force the issue so I had to turn on Skyler."

"You made her take me as a lifemate?"

"I tried, dude. I did. She said no."

Dimitri grew very still, feeling suddenly like he had been punched in the belly. This was all so unreal. Like a dream with a very bad storyline. "I do not understand."

Aleksandra made an impatient noise."What part of 'she said no' don't you understand?"

"If she rejected me and I was turning then why am I not vampire?" His voice sounded shrill even to him. " Why am I sitting here, normal?"

"Normal isn't exactly the word I'd use for you, bro."

"You know what I mean ! Stop hedging."

Aleksandra sighed. "You were turning and she said no and she wasn't going to change her mind so I took matters in my own hands."

"Meaning?"

"I severed your bond."

"What?"

"You heard me. I severed your bond. That's why you can't feel her and she can't feel you. You're not connected anymore."


	4. Chapter 4

The night sky was cloudless, full of stars, the moon so bright it was like daytime but without the color. The mountains rolled into the distance, graceful in places, fierce in others. Unending, forbidding, eerie, but also unfailingly beautiful.

Two figures emerged from the line of trees, moving soundlessly. The first, a black wolf, crested the ridge and sniffed the air. A gorgeous creature, all sinew and glossy black fur, it held its head with the imperious posture of the master hunter, the alpha male. Wind shivered in the trees. When the leaves grew still a man was standing where the wolf had been, all long muscles and flowing dark hair and majestic bearing, his hominal shape a paraphrase of his earlier lupine form. As he scanned the horizon a smaller wolf behind him took on the outline of a young girl.

"Go inside. Tis too cold for you out here."

Aleksandra focused her eyes on her brother's unyielding back. He hadn't even turned to speak to her. They hadn't exchanged a word since leaving Gabriel's house on the sly, just before sunrise so as to discourage pursuit. Dimitri had refused to take to the air, saying that he felt too open, too vulnerable, and so it had been two nights of full speed running over hill and dale, rock and river. Ordinarily it would have been nothing to her but what had just happened had taken more from her than she had realized. For the first time in her life Aleksandra felt dead on her feet. She had barely managed to shift and now it was all she could do to stay upright.

"Get inside, Aleksandra," her brother repeated softly. He still wouldn't look at her.

"You're not coming?"

"Later."

Aleksandra hesitated for a moment and then turned towards the hidden opening of the den. Her home. She spared a glance back, in time to catch her brother shifting back to wolf and taking off at a dead run. Shoulders sagging a little, she went inside.

* * *

Gregori Daratrazanoff, master Carpathian healer, was studying the edges of the imploded wall of Gabriel's house with the same intense focus he gave to his healing.

Not that there was much left to study. The wall had not only been knocked down, it had been pulverized. What was left of it on the floor couldn't even rightly be called rubble -the stuff fell more comfortably into the classification of dust. He stooped and let some trail through his fingers, gazed at the streak of black left behind. Not just dust. Ash.

He raised his head, scanned the room thoughtfully. A pulverized wall, shorted electric lights, an addled bunch of shellshocked ancients. One hell of an aftermath. If he hadn't actually been in attendance at the main event he probably wouldn't have believed the stories. As it was he had trouble believing what he had seen. Wittingly or unwittingly, driven by adrenaline or not, the girl they had just met had displayed an extravagance of power unprecedented in someone so young. No, not just unprecedented - damn near impossible by any of his calculations.

Had she had some help?

And perhaps just as disturbing was the silence with which the girl had disappeared with her brother, who, as far as he knew, had not even regained consciousness. The disappearance itself did not surprise him, but the quietness of the escape did. She had been in a warded room in a warded house, in close proximity to a group of powerful ancients and they had felt nothing. Nothing. And as far as Gabriel, Lucien and Jaxon could tell, there was no trail. He did not envy his brother the task of explaining what had happened to Mikhail, their prince. Were there even words to rightly describe it? He sure as hell couldn't come up with any


	5. Chapter 5

_Thanks again for the reviews. They are much appreciated --- keep 'em coming!_

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Aleksandra woke, cold. She blinked, lifted her head, suddenly realizing that someone was piling blankets on her. "Dima," she mumbled.

"Sleep," her brother murmured. "You need it."

But Aleksandra was already sitting up, rubbing sleep from bleary eyes. "Where were you? Have they come after us?"

Dimitri settled on the edge of the bed. "No," he said, reaching out to push her hair from her eyes. "It should be a while yet."

"But they will come."

"Yes."

So why had they bothered to run? The question hung in the air. Truth was it had been his way of hedging, of buying time. Too much had happened and he needed to think things through before facing anyone. Running always helped him think. Most important of all it had put distance between Aleksandra and the others.

"Are you going to send me away again?"

Her brother sighed a great sigh. "I don't know, Shura."

"Why are we running like I did something wrong? I didn't do anything wrong."

"No," he said quietly, his eyes sad. "You did not."

"Then it's started. This thing you've always been afraid of. It's started."

"What thing?"

"The thing. The … the my-being-different thing. I saw their faces when I froze them. I saw Gregori's expression when he realized what I had done. I know I'll see it again when they come to see us and they realize you're fine. They don't understand it, they don't understand me and it scares them. "

Dimitri wasn't going to insult her by denying it. "No, they do not understand." His hand moved gently in her hair as he gazed at her for a moment. "Do _you_ understand, Shura?" he asked softly. "You still haven't told me how you did what you did. I have never heard of a lifemate bond being severed before. I did not even think it was possible."

The girl pursed her lips, hesitant. "It's kind of a longer story than you think."

"Tell me."

At last she nodded. The run had cleared his mind. Maybe he was now in a condition to understand. "When you recognized Skyler for the first time I was there," she began. "That was two years ago and even then you were uncomfortably close to turning so I had followed you. I saw what happened with you and her, with you and Gabriel, I followed her around without her knowing and she said things that worried me. About not ever wanting to be a lifemate, not wanting to be bonded to any man ever. "

"What did you do?"

"What I always do. I studied."

"Studied what?"

"Bonding," she replied. "Your bond. Everyone's bonds."

"How can you study something so --- intangible? Something you cannot even see?"

"But I _can_ see it."

"What?"

"The bond. I can see it." She shrugged a little at his incredulous expression. "Not like I can see you but I can see it. Not with my eyes. Or --- not _just _with my eyes."

Dimitri could only shake his head.

His sister began to explain in rather alarming detail and Dimitri struggled to take it all in. Bonds had colors. Bonds varied in intensity. When mates were far apart they were misty. When they were close together the color intensified to almost solid. For bonded lifemates the colors were cool --- blues, greens, light baby colors like pink, were swirly and soft. For those who had found a lifemate the bond connected them even if they hadn't exchanged blood but their bonds were red and orange and had a different energy to them. For those who hadn't found a lifemate the bond--- or what would be the bond --- surrounded them like an aura. The longer someone didn't find a mate or the longer recognized mates were not bonded the darker the red until it was almost black.

" Like yours and Skyler's," she said to him. "It was no longer a good thing, Dimitri."

He pondered that. Much as he wanted to deny it he knew it was true. "You still haven't told me how you did it. You cut the bond with your sword?" He had seen images in her head as she'd explained it to him back in Gabriel's house.

Aleksandra frowned. "_No_. The sword just helped focus the energy, focus the image of cutting. I needed to be able to see the cutting in my head and the sword helped with that. It didn't actually cut. As far as I can tell the lifemate bond is just energy. It doesn't look very different from other bonds --- family ones and friendly ones. Just more intense and its …." she struggled to find the right word "… _substance_ is a little different."

"And you broke it with?"

"More energy," she shrugged. "I'm not sure how to explain it, Dima. You're right --- I'm not sure I understand it all myself. "

There were many things about Aleksandra that noone understood. It had always been so.

"How did you know the bond could be cut? That using your energy to cut it wouldn't hurt you? Or anyone else?"

"I didn't."

Dimitri shut his eyes.

Aleksandra was quiet a moment "It wasn't a decision I made lightly, Dima. You had begun to turn and that forced the issue."

He caught the tone in her voice and looked at her. Suddenly he understood that she thought he was angry. He might have beeen, he had to admit. But all at once he realized just how much she had done for him, how much she had risked. Whatever it was she had done had spared him but not her. Whatever it was had consumed a great deal of her energy, perhaps her even her life-force --- he could tell now from how tired she was --- too tired to even grin or make light of the situation like she normally would have. He, on the other hand, was hale and whole and, if the truth be told, felt more at peace than he had in centuries. And he hadn't even said thank you.

Reaching out, he caressed her soft cheek. "Forgive me. I am an ungrateful wretch."

Aleksandra rose abruptly and began to pace the room, holding the blanket round her shoulders. She was suddenly shaking with relief and she hoped her brother hadn't noticed. _Relief. _That he wasn't vampire. That he was alive. And, most important of all, that her brother was still her brother-- and he didn't hate her. She had prepared for this as best she could. Prepared because she knew his lifemate couldn't be depended on. Prepared because he was too powerful a warrior to lose, his welfare too important to be trusted to an unknown female with a questionable history. Prepared because – and she was honest enough with herself to admit it now--- because her brother was all she had in this world. And out of a long list of possible terrible things that could happen losing him was the single terrible thing that she couldn't see herself surviving.

So she had prepared. But all that preparation hadn't banished the spectre of having to kill him. That possibility had always been around, hanging in the air right til the very last moment.

Aleksandra took a careful breath as her throat threatened to close. Suddenly her brother was there, bending close, and she took a step back and held out a hand to ward him off. He was fine and so she would be, too. Sentiment could be saved for another, more terrible day. Instead of backing off, however, her brother took the hand she had held up to discourage him, kissed it, and then wrapped his arms around her. Aleksandra's stoic resolve lasted but half a second.

Dimitri held her tight, rubbed the back of her head. "It was a huge risk, Shura."

Aleksandra drew away after a bit, scrubbing at her wet cheeks, more than a little embarrassed. Tears were just not her style. "I know," she said when she felt she could trust herself to speak. She glanced briefly at him and then ducked, unable to hold his gaze for very long. Despite the age difference, her brother had treated her like an equal for as long as she could remember. This was the first time she had ever felt very much the little sister. "I'm sorry. I just thought you would think anything was better than being vampire."

Gentle fingers grasped her chin and turned her to face him. "I was not talking about the risk to me," he said softly to her. "I was talking about the risk to you."

Dimitri tilted his head and watched his sister blink in surprise. "Please tell me you considered it, at least.," he added, his tone dry.

She looked away, fine brows drawing over her straight little nose. Of course she hadn't. As he had suspected, the thought had never even occurred to her.

He gave her his best glower. "I still cannot decide whether to say thank you or damn you," he told her frankly, folding his arms. "To hug you or wring your neck."

"You chose to hug me already. "

Dimitri sighed. "What you did was far far too dangerous. My life did not merit it, Shura."

Aleksandra opened her mouth to dispute that but a sudden rush of power made them turn in unison. Dimitri looked round in dismay as it rippled in the air. "Go to mist,' he hissed to his sister. "Now, Shura !"

After a split-second hesitation, the girl obeyed.

"Hello, old friend,' came a deep voice from behind Dimitri. "It's been a long time."


	6. Chapter 6

_It seemed he was always in a hurry. For what had seemed like forever time had seemed to stretch endlessly --- now there didn't seem to be enough time. For anything. He stripped his vampire-bloody clothes off and showered quickly, tonight not lingering at having the water wash over his body. Wrapping a towel round his middle he went into the other room. _

_The baby had recently discovered her toes. She would lie there contemplating the fat little digits, put them in her mouth, suck, and then giggle because it tickled. He'd heard her giggles from the shower. Now she had three in her mouth as he picked her up but she let go of her chunky little foot as she was lifted and grinned at him. As always, Dimitri found himself smiling back. "Always happy to see me, eh, _malynkaya_ ?," he said to her. "Now what have I done to deserve that?" The infant gurgled in response and patted his face, a funny little habit she had recently cultivated. He nuzzled her soft cheek._

_What indeed? He left her for hours on end, could not protect her while the sun was out and he was dead to the world. Sometimes her only security was a warded room, often he had to entrust her to the care of humans, more than once he had left her with a nearby wolf pack. Only five months old, she took the constant upheaval in stride, was never without a grin or a giggle. In the past week or so she had actually developed a belly laugh, one that seemed to come from deep inside her little tummy._

_Dimitri often wondered : How could something that weighed so little, that took up such a small amount of physical space fill up so much of that great empty gorge inside him? How could a tiny bit with no hair and no teeth, that couldn't speak, that drooled and spit up and weed on him bring so much joy? The baby smiled and colors bloomed, she laughed and emotions flared. He was fully alive when she was around. It had been so since the beginning, from the moment he had ripped her out of their dying mother's womb. He had kept them hidden for months but vampire had found them. It had been a moment of exagerrated horror when he had come across his mother's freshly decapitated body and realized the babe in her womb still moved, still lived. The monster was dead --- it hadn't even taken Dimitri much to kill it. But he hadn't come in time to save his mother. That the child he had torn from her dead body had brought him so much joy hadn't seemed a fitting punishment for that. That she had since turned his life absolutely topsy turvy hadn't exactly been punishment, either. Juggling hunting vampire with feeding and burping, fighting and killing with rocking her to sleep. He didn't deserve to be happy but he was, for the first time in a long long while. Dimitri sighed and that brought a deep belly laugh from his baby sister. His sighs never failed to make her laugh. Maybe he should have felt insulted that she found his despondent moments so amusing but he still found himself chuckling in response._

_A sound behind him made him turn. "Marguerite," he said with some surprise to the young woman standing there. "Tis not even sunrise yet. I was going to bring the baby to your house."_

_It was a moment before Marguerite responded. "I thought maybe you would….need something. _Maitre_."_

_This young human woman had always made him feel uncomfortable. That she insisted on addressing him as master made him even more so. Golden-skinned and doe-eyed, she was beautiful, but no more so than countless women he had known over the long years. The way she spoke, her scratchy voice, even the way she looked at him made him ill at ease. Even now her eyes traveled slowly over him, from wet head to bare foot, making him suddenly extremely conscious of the fact that he was wearing nothing but a towel. Instinctively he shifted the infant in his arms, holding her in front of him almost as a protective shield, but of course she was too teensy to cover much of his broad chest. He felt almost silly having done it. _

_"Thank you," he said, finding his voice. "But I do not seem to need anything. I have more than an hour yet before I need to….go. I will put her to sleep before I leave."_

_She nodded, but lingered, her gaze traveling languorously over him again. Dimitri was certainly not too innocent to recognize hunger in a woman's eyes --- however, he had never felt less inclined to respond. At the moment his life was too complicated to further complicate._

_"That will be all for now, Marguerite," he said quietly, firmly. "I will bring the baby to you before sunrise."_

_The woman's eyes had flashed and something in Dimitri had rippled in response. It was like a foretelling of future trouble. _

_And trouble Marguerite became. If he had had a choice he would have left Shura with someone else, but all in the vicinity were too supersititious and wary of strangers and the wolf pack had moved on. He himself couldn't move on just yet --- he was hunting down a nest of vampires in the area and was too close to wiping them out. As the days went by her advances became more and more blatant, until at last he had come home to find Shura sleeping in her room and Marguerite naked in his bed, waiting. He had tried to dismiss her as gently as he could but the humiliation of his rejection had bitten deeper than he realized. The next day --- the day he had sworn would be his last in the area --- she had disappeared with his sister and it would be four years before he saw Shura again._

* * * * *

"That is a hell of a tale, Dima."

Julian Savage leaned back in the wooden chair in the sparsely furnished room and stretched out his long legs. "You living almost like a human. With a baby. You didn't hunt her down?"

"Of course I did!"

"And? You killed the human?" " He saw Dimitri hesitate. Julian wasn't normally interested in prying into other people's lives but this story coupled with his long standing friendship with Dimitri had him intrigued. Not to mention what he had already heard and was only now hearing about this sister of his. "I would have," he said, as a way of urging his friend on.

Dimitri spoke grimly. "Marguerite spared me that particular honor by getting a vampire to turn her before I got my hands on her."

"That was easier on your conscience, then. And your sister ?"

This time the hesitation was deeper, more painful.

"Come on, old friend," he urged. "We all need to purge from time to time. The good and the bad. You've been keeping this to yourself for too long."

Dimitri let out a long whistling breath. At last he nodded. "It was four years before I saw my sister again," he said.

"How did you find her?"

"I didn't. She found me."

* * * * *

_He had just risen from the ground, felt the familiar emptiness of another night yawn before him. Then a presence behind him made itself known. He whirled, fangs already lengthening, muscles coiling for the fight._

_A very very small figure was sitting on the branch of a tree growing just beside the spot where he had lain for the night. It was a child, a small girl, her posture one of patient waiting. She seemed unconcerned that he had bared his teeth and she was watching him, unimpressed._

_Time seemed to stop._

_He walked slowly to the child, who gazed at him with eerie calm. She had a wealth of dark hair and he was betting those tip-tilted, water-clear eyes would be blue in the right light. He stopped very close to her._

It couldn't be.

_Then the little girl reached out with a small hand and patted his cheek. _

_Dimitri had her in his arms and crushed to his chest before he was even aware of it. Emotions flaring in him for the first time in four years drove him to his knees._

_When the wave of emotion ebbed he took a long breath very much like a sigh. Suddenly the child in his arms giggled. He drew back and stared at her and a little belly laugh rippled out, shaking her small body. Her grin showed pearly white teeth. He found himself mourning the fact that he hadn't been around to watch each of those tiny jewels make their appearance. She was missing one in front --- but even the hole was beautiful._

_He pushed her thick hair back. She was filthy as a little grub and smelled twice as bad. Still, he managed a smile. "_Malinkaya_," he said. "You need a bath."_


	7. Chapter 7

_Thanks again for the reviews. Please keep 'em coming._

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_Danger Danger Danger_

_Danger Danger Danger_

Aleksandra clamped her hands to her ears to stop the repeated clanging of the word --- not that it would really help since the word clanged only inside her head. Always it was like this when she was in a new place, but this place was newer to her than any other, and stranger.

She looked around. She was used to forest, had grown up near it, but this was unlike any forest she had ever known. Everything here seemed to be on steroids, more big, more tall, more robust, just _ more _somehow. Trees growing and growing and growing nearly on top of each other. And not just trees --- vines, flowers, plants so thick, so dense that the surrounding green had an almost liquid quality to it, like it could flow around you and swallow you whole. Lucky she wasn't claustrophobic. That on top of the alarm bells in her head would have been downright unbearable.

Her extra sharp senses were always extra alert when she was in new territory --- controlling extrasensory overdrive was not a skill she had mastered yet. Maybe it was because she didn't really want to ---- picking up everything was a pain in the neck but she was convinced it kept her safe. It was the little things that people ignored that usually got them in the end. And so Aleksandra always paid attention to the little things.

Being as sensitive as she was to the nuances of different energies, she had had to spend a great deal of time learning how to tell them apart. A great great deal of time. As she walked through the dense vegetation, she made out dozens of different life forces --- snake up one tree, birds in another, a milieu of bugs passing underfoot, and, some distance behind her, the creature that had been trailing her for the better part of an hour. The thing stalking her – it was threat, yes, but only because it intended to be. Truth was, nothing about the way the creature moved or the flavor of the energy that surrounded it suggested it would be anything more than a minor nuisance. Its energy was intense, yes, but tinged with arrogance --- always a dead giveaway. Everything about it --- the predictability of its positioning, the lack of stealth, told her this attack would be totally amateur. The creature thought it had her at a disadvantage and right then she was in just the right mood to humor it.

She stopped by a tree so enormous she couldn't see the top of it through the amazing canopy of leaves and leaned over in pretense of studying its unusual deep pink flower. Inside her head she began to count backwards from five…. four, three, two … the moment she hit one she simultaneously took a step back and dropped to her haunches, tucking her head to her knees for a moment. Sound and movement behind and above her told her something fairly large and weighty, with a lot of momentum, was sailing above her head. The unceremonious thud and screech as it hit the tree then told her that that had not been in the plan ---_ she_ was the one who was supposed to have ended up plastered to the humongous trunk. A single ducking step backward had been all it took to thwart that. Distance and timing,the two pillars of defensive combat.

_Master, _she thought to herself, _you would have been proud. _

She straightened and faced the animal that had been trailing her for almost an hour before launching an attack. Feline. And female. Just as she had guessed, she noted with satisfaction. When faced with another of the same gender, there was always a certain recognizable tang of enmity to a female's energy that no male could duplicate. It didn't matter what species --- the XY gene always held true to that.

"Easy, girl," she murmured to the jaguar who bared its fangs and growled deep in its throat. "I have no quarrel with you. I'm just passing through, not looking for food, not seeking territory."

The jaguar sprang again. Even Aleksandra was surprised at how easy it was to sidestep the attack and use a gentle push in the direction of momentum of the airborne body to throw it to one side. She had practiced this move a thousand times. A thousand thousand times. However, she'd never expected to use it against a cat, never expected it to succeed against a full-grown jaguar who should have been honed to the hunt. It was strange to encounter one so callow--- it had broadcasted its attack a split second before with a slight duck of its head she figured it wasn't even aware of. Now it was angry and humiliated and that made it more angry. Even just because of that it was becoming a real threat. Aleksandra was not so stupid as to presume simple combat tactics would keep her safe from a spitting, denigrated predatory cat --- especially in its own territory, a place she didn't know. Letting her knees fold, she took hold of the cat's neck as it attacked again and attempted to pin her with its weight. She quickly rolled over as it went for her neck but instead of pushing it away, hugged the beast's head tightly to her, so the creature had no room to bite.

_As wise man said : Too-close as effective as too-far._

The beast was very nearly her size and powerful in the way of its species, but there was more to pinning an opponent than brute strength. Changing her grip as she rolled, Aleksandra managed to trap the great creature under and facing away from her. "Easy," she murmured. "I'm leaving your territory now. I don't want anymore trouble, I'm sorry if it was disrespectful to you but I just need to pass through. So just let me be…"

The jaguar's scream and struggle told her that it wasn't listening, that it wasn't going to listen, that it didn't want to listen. It was not behaving very jaguar-like ---- they had traveled far and had covered much space in the half hour or so that the cat had been stalking her so she doubted this was a matter of territory. It was almost like the female was making a show at dominance --- strange behavior in a species known for solitary nature rather than pack mentality. Making a quick, calculated decision, Aleksandra extracted a small butterfly knife from her back pocket, flipped it out and drew the edge of the blade under the cat's chin, just deep enough to draw blood. It was a brand, an act to stamp not dominance but superiority. Then she sprang back, letting the cat go. The beast got to its feet, making a sound eerily like a scream. Its eyes flashed hate but the situation of just moments before coupled with the blood dripping from the nick under its muzzle obviously gave it pause. It contemplated her for a moment and then bounded away.

"Well you're no fun," Aleksandra muttered. The attack hadn't really rattled her, but arrogance wasn't in her nature and she was quick to acknowledge that the situation could have gone very bad very quickly in this wild, unfamiliar place. Sightseeing was over. It was time to use her inner GPS to find Dimitri. Him and the people who had summoned them to this place. It had been two years since she had had contact with any Carpathian save for her brother's friend Julian Savage. For that reason alone, this trip could prove very very interesting.


	8. Chapter 8

"He's not here," said the young girl, looking under the bed and then in the closet. "Or here. Is he out on the terrace?"

A second girl, some years older, wandered out onto the small balcony, apparently not as interested in the search as her companion. "No," she replied as it became immediately apparent that the object of their search was not there. She looked over the balustrade into the lush garden, where two men with their backs to her were conversing just below. The sun had just gone down and floodlights had come automatically on, illuminating the beautifully landscaped expanse of lawn. The lamps were so powerful, so cunnningly placed, that it seemed almost like daylight was flooding the place.

The girl cocked her head. She recognized one of the men, could tell his identity from the golden gleam of his hair and the sound of his laugh. The other one looked familiar but that was not surprising - from behind he was typically Carpathian - tall, with long dark hair. He was a little leaner than most, though the lithe economy of the way he moved hinted that he was no less a warrior for his lack of bulk. For some reason her heart skipped a beat. There was something about the way he held his head, a wonderfully regal tilt …..

All at once the man turned and she had a full view of his face. The girl gasped and fell to a crouch behind a potted plant. She held her head down for a moment, very like a child at hide-and- seek, not daring to move for fear of discovery. When her heart had slowed a bit, she gingerly pushed a large leaf aside, just enough for her to peek down at the two men. Her breath caught once more and a name whispered through her lips.

The wind caught the name and swept it into the trees as the kneeling girl fetched her hands to her mouth.

* * *

Aleksandra was on her belly, trying not to eat the long grass at the mouth of the hole and at the same time trying to ignore a determined bug that was trying to get into her ear. Almost. Almost….

"Gotcha!" she cried out and yanked. With a yowl and a hiss a spotted cub came flying out of the hole and landed with a thud on the ground. It yowled again in complaint but did not protest when Aleksandra picked it up and cuddled it to her. It was shaking.

"Easy, baby cat," she murmured, stroking its soft fur. "You're all right."

"Graςas a Deus you've found him," said a deep male voice.

Aleksandra lifted her head, unconcerned at the sudden appearance of a stranger. She had sensed his presence several hundred meters back and knew he wasn't a threat. No surprise either that he was tall, dark and Carpathian.

"Is he yours?" she asked as the man crouched beside her and she handed the cub over to him. It obviously knew him for it quieted and nestled close.

"Not exactly. But he is under my protection. I'm indebted to you."

Aleksandra smiled. It seemed this was her day to for helping little lost animals. Just before sunrise that morning she had rescued a little wolf cub caught in a human trap, healed it and returned it to its mother. In a strange parallel to her current situation she had also been thanked by a Carpathian evidently tied to the pack. It had been a pretty lady with a smile that was very nice but very awkward - like she didn't use it a lot. She hadn't told Aleksandra her name and the girl had respected that and not probed.

The man's dark eyes studied Aleksandra, narrowing a bit. A female, alone and unprotected in this territory. At nearly full dark. His spirit rebelled at the thought and his stomach actually turned at the possibilities for disaster that his mind had conjured. She was young and seemed - stupidly - unafraid. He probed her mind and surprisingly came up with nothing. So he asked out loud. "Why are you alone here? Where are you headed ?"

The girl lifted her arm and pointed her finger with conviction. "That way," she said, her tone one of absolute certainty.

Again the man's eyes narrowed. She knew where she was going but not what the place was. Stranger and stranger.

"Come then," he said at last, holding out one hand to help her to her feet as he held the cub to his chest with the other. "It seems we are going the same way."

Aleksandra didn't really need the help but to be polite she accepted the hand up. She was surprised at the startled jolt that came from the man's thoughts as she gripped his hand, and the sudden mental projection of what seemed to be a rainbow. It was gone as quickly as it came but the man stood staring at her as she got to her feet.

"Is something wrong?" She glanced at him as she slapped the dirt from her jeans. "I can find my own way if you need to be somewhere else."

"No," said the man quickly, like he had been startled from his stupor. "Come. We will go together."

* * *

"Hey! He's not here. Let's go look somewhere else…"

The older girl on the balcony jerked a finger to her lips, frowning, and the younger, startled, dropped to her knees beside her friend.

"What's wrong?" she said in a loud whisper. As her companion shushed her impatiently once more, she peeked through the foliage at the scene in the garden below. "What's happening ?" she asked, making out the figures just under them. "Oh, it's just Julian and…"

She was spared another reprimand as her voice trailed off. She sat there with one hand holding a leaf back and her mouth open.

"And who is that?" she said, her voice almost reverential.

The older girl turned back to the scene below. She understood the younger one's shock. She had felt it herself laying eyes on him just a few moments ago. It wasn't the first time in her life she had seen him but it may as well have been. She remembered him all right - how could she not? But she didn't remember him being this tall, this straight, his hair being that black or his lips that superbly sculpted. His eyes were the same, so intensely blue she could see their color from where she was, but the look in them was not. Where before they had semed so dark, so tormented, now they were clear and open. The way he moved - even the way he held himself was different. The energy around him was vibrant and alive. In almost every sense of the word he was a different man.

And the sight of him was taking all the air away.

"Who is that?" the younger girl kept asking in an insistent, overly loud whisper. "Do you know him?"

"Dimitri," Skyler replied at last, very softly. "It's Dimitri."


	9. Chapter 9

_Thank you, Mistrus, here it is._

_To the readers—I'd like to know if its confusing to switch back and forth between a character's name and nickname (Aleksandra/Shura)? It's hard to tell when you're reading your own stuff. I'd appreciate any feedback about this. Thank you in advance!_

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"Well, look who's finally here," Julian smiled as Aleksandra walked into the garden with one of the de la Cruz brothers. He hugged the grinning girl and laughed when she lifted him bodily off his feet and set him back down again.

"Hello, Sunshine."

She made a face at him. "I don't understand why you keep calling me that."

"Because that's what you are," Julian said, framing her small face with his hands and kissing the top of her head. "Sunshine and rainbows. And totally clueless about it."

He watched Dimitri hug his little sister, the intensity of his embrace belying the distress he had been hiding since he had risen and found that Shura had not yet arrived. He then extended his hand in greeting to the man who had escorted the girl in. "Well met, Manolito," he said. "It's been a while."

"Julian," the man smiled, clasping his hand. "Welcome."

"This is a beautiful place you and your brothers have here."

"Thank you. We like it, too."

Julian turned his attention to the tiny cub the tall man held cradled in his arms. "Is this the cause of all the excitement we rose to this evening?"

Manolito looked down at the bundle of fur. "He's been missing since this morning. The entire estate is in an uproar."

"Where did you find him?"

"I didn't. She did."

Julian glanced over at Shura, who grinned. "He was down a hole."

"It was lucky you found him then. "

"With the racket he was making someone would have found him soon enough."

"I'm not so sure," Manolito said a little wryly. "There was a lot of jungle to search. You saved us a lot of trouble and this little cub a lot of anguish. A lot of things could have happened to someone alone out there," He gave the girl a meaningful look to emphasize his last statement.

She didn't catch his insinuation however for she only said "He just couldn't resist all the exciting things to discover could you, little cat?" She reached out to rub the cub's head and the little animal leaned into her hand and began to purr. A grin lit up her face. "I think he likes me!"

Manolito couldn't help smiling back. "What is your name, so we know who we owe such a great debt to?"

Dimitri turned to his sister, red-faced. "You haven't introduced yourself to our host?"

"I didn't know he was our host!"

"I beg your pardon, Manolito, but this ill-mannered brat is my sister Aleksandra. I hope you will forgive her. She is a little --- how do you say --- scatterbrained."

The girl blinked curiously at Manolito, her gaze raking his big frame up and down. "Manolito?" she said. "Is that your name? Your parents must have had a hell of a sense of humor."

"She's rude, too," Dimitri said, mortified. He sent an apologetic glance at Manolito from over his sister's shoulder.

But Manolito only threw his head back and laughed. "It was my brothers who nicknamed me little Manuel. I'm not so certain it was because of a sense of humor."

"You can call me Shura if it makes you feel any better. My brother nicknamed me, too."

"Shura is a standard nickname," Dimitri said a little defensively. "No hidden meanings there."

Manolito gave the girl a wink. "We both know better, don't we, Shura?"

"Oh I don't mind too much. My real name is kind of a mouthful."

Manolito chuckled again. "I must go return this cub to its mother. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Zacarias will be here soon."

"Manolito," Julian called out when he would have turned to go. "Do you know what this is about?"

"Only that Zacarias summoned you in behalf of the prince. This is Mikhail's gather ---- but we do not expect him til tomorrow."

"There is trouble?"

Manolito hesitated a moment. "It feels like it, yes. My brother has not elaborated but that is how he is. He will tell us when the time is right, when everyone is here who should be."

"Who else is coming?"

"I have only seen the two of you so far but I hear from Rafael that Gregori will be here."

Julian and Dimitri exchanged glances.

"I must go," Manolito said again. "My brother is calling that the cub's mother is beside herself."

With that he was gone and Julian, Dimitri and Aleksandra walked towards the house. Sensing something, Shura glanced backwards and then up. There, over in the balcony. Someone was watching them. Her gaze locked momentarily with a pair of eyes peering through some foliage, but sensing no real threat she turned away. Julian slung his arm around her shoulder and they walked into the main house.


	10. Chapter 10

_Thanks again, Mistrus. I realize now that I just took for granted that everyone reading this would have read Feehan's books and would be familiar with most of the other characters (the only one I introduced was Aleksandra) and situations. Apologies for that presumption--- a short description of the original characters borrowed from Christine Feehan's books follows this chapter. I haven't read all the books myself so any inconsistencies pointed out would be much appreciated._

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Aleksandra wandered, bored. Apparently, most of the people here were like her brother --- which meant she would be alone for several hours yet until the sun went down. So she began to explore.

What did they call this place—an estate? It was huge and there were several houses, not just one. She wasn't sure she understood that --- wasn't it kind of wasteful when it seemed they didn't really make use of the place? So far she had explored three of maybe five or six houses built into the mountain at different levels, so cunningly camouflaged with trees and foliage that she doubted they could be seen from above. The main house was old – she'd been hard-pressed to shut off all the energies bombarding her when she touched the ancient wooden door. Centuries' worth. Huge, set in carved stone, so tall it seemed it had been built to let giants pass, the old wood had absorbed the energies of all those centuries of people walking through it, all the excitements and tragedies of a place that had been well and truly lived in. How did that old saying go --- the walls have ears? Well maybe not ears but walls certainly had memories. If people knew how much a wall or even a door could tell someone who knew how to listen they would probably never do or say anything indoors. This particular door had so much to say that it was overwhelming to her so she refrained from touching it and continued her exploration. She had yet to encounter a single soul.

That changed as she explored the next house, some way down the slope. Unlike the main house, this one was brand spanking new with gleaming fixtures and fancy amenities. Geometric lines to everything --- clean circular furniture here, sharply angled decorations there. White and blinding-shiny chrome everywhere. Recessed lighting. Drawers and closets that slid open and shut with barely a push of a finger. Fancy faucets that ran hot water and cold water and any combination of the two. Sparkly bathrooms of cavernous size that showed no signs of wear. What was that phrase that so amused her? _Top of the line_. Yes, that was it --- everything here was top-of-the-line. Just the sight of it screamed money – demanded you not only acknowledge but salute the fact that no expense had been spared. This was apparently a place where ostentation was venerated.

Sensing a presence she went in search of it. She found a kitchen the size of a baseball field and opened the door of what turned out to be a humongous larder filled with food. A pair of huge eyes stared out at her from the dark nook under the lowest shelf.

"My word, you are fond of dark tight places, aren't you?"

The eyes blinked and Aleksandra reached out and drew the culprit from his hiding place. "I get the feeling you have people looking for you again," she said to the child, a little boy maybe a year and a half old with tawny hair and bright green eyes. He blinked and touched her face for a moment and then squirmed to get free. Aleksandra laughed and put him down, following him as he toddled out the door with the rolling, unsteady gait of one who has just learned how. She caught him as he tripped over the threshold and he giggled as she swung him up and tossed him in the air.

"Oh my God you've found him!" Aleksandra turned as a young woman came rushing up and grabbed the child from her arms. His mother, she figured instantly ---- she had the same tawny hair flowing down her back and the same green eyes, liquid now with tears. She hugged the child tight.

"He was just exploring," Aleksandra said, her tone one of reassurance as she sensed the genuine depths of the woman's distress.

"Thank you for finding him!" the young woman said to her. Aleksandra could tell she was trying hard to keep from crying. She wasn't doing a very good job. Aleksandra somehow got the feeling this lady cried a lot--- the aura of tears and despair surrounded her like a shroud and she actually found herself taking a step back to distance herself from it.

"You're Aleksandra aren't you?," the child's mother said tearfully. "Manolito told me you found him in the jungle yesterday. I haven't had a chance to thank you."

Aleksandra shrugged a little. "It was almost by accident, really."

"It's just that since he's learned to walk, he's been going everywhere. I just need…"

"He needs to be locked up so he doesn't get into trouble," an acerbic voice cut in from behind them.

They both turned as another young woman, shaggy-haired and wearing guns and knives strapped to various parts of her body, strode into the room. Aleksandra straightened and her eyebrows lifted. The newcomer looked extremely annoyed --- and she gave off the impression that annoyance was a permanent state of being for her rather than just an emotion passing through. Just like sadness had been to the first. Holy heaven, she found herself thinking, what a pair.

The newcomer had marched in with the kind of arrogant authority you would see in a wolf pack alpha. Apparently this woman ran the show here. Or thought she did. The little boy's eyes filled with tears at the sound of her voice and his small face crumpled up as he pressed closer to his mother.

"Yes now you cry – do you know the trouble you've caused with your wandering? Your mother doesn't need this kind of grief!"

Aleksandra could tell that part of the woman's anger came from real concern, even fear, but there was something else there that went deeper. Some misdirected resentment she couldn't quite figure out --- well what on earth could there be to resent about a year-and-a-half old child? Even one who kept finding his way into dark places he shouldn't?

"He's just a baby," Aleksandra said before she could stop herself.

The young woman whirled in her direction and then stopped a moment, her eyes wide. Then, catching herself, she said "Who the hell are you?"

"Solange, this is Aleksandra," the other girl said in her soft voice. "She found Gael just now. She's the one who found him yesterday in the jungle."

_Along with a lot of other interesting things, _Aleksandra thought to herself, watching the woman, who stared for a moment and then tore her eyes away.

"Jasmine, you'll need to control him better --- he can't be allowed to wander around, putting himself and everyone else in danger. Lock him in his room if you can't watch him properly!"

"No, don't," Aleksandra cut in again even as the other girl shrank visibly from Solange's wrath. "He's just a baby --- you can't cage him."

"I don't recall asking for your opinion!" she snapped.

"I don't recall ever needing someone to ask for my opinion before I give it," Aleksandra said mildly. "You don't lock babies up --- they need to explore. Jaguar especially."

Aleksandra felt the jolt of emotion as she said the word 'jaguar'. She frowned a little. Something was going on here --- something that had to do with Jasmine's tearful, fearful spirit and Solange's jaw-dropping arrogance. Not normally curious about other people's lives, Aleksandra found herself intrigued. She wondered how it all tied up with this incomprehensible attitude towards a baby.

"What do _you_ know about jaguar?" Solange threw back at her with obvious disdain.

"More than you, obviously, if you think that locking this child up will solve your problems."

Solange glared at her. "I'm going to get Nestor to fix the locks on his door," she said to Jasmine and then swung on her heel and left.

Aleksandra watched her go and then turned to the tearful girl who stood there, hugging her baby. Unable to help herself she said "So you're just going to let her do it? You're going to let her lock up your baby?"

"You don't understand," Jasmine said softly. "She's just trying to protect us. She's always protected us."

"Why does she have to protect you? Haven't you learned to protect yourself?"

Jasmine gave her a startled look, almost like the thought had never occurred to her.

Aleksandra shook her head as she said. "She may be armed to the teeth but she will never be able to protect you twenty-four hours out of every day. If there's something you're afraid of then you need to prepare yourself, not hide and let someone else run your life. And your baby's."

Jasmine bit her lip.

Aleksandra, unused to the feeling of helplessness that this woman projected so strongly, thought a moment. Helplessness was not something she was intimate with for it was neither an emotion nor a state of being that she had ever tolerated. Helpless was a warning that it was time to find/make/manipulate a solution --- not a signal to go wallow and hide. "If you want," she began slowly, "I can teach…"

The sound of Solange calling out her name made them both turn and Jasmine looked apologetically at Aleksandra. "I have to go."

"I'll watch your baby if you want. He'll come to no harm with me."

Jasmine bit her lip again and gazed at her with true gratitude. "Thank you. Maybe another day."

Then she was gone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Some of Christine Feehan's original characters:_

_Julian – is Julian Savage, a Carpathian whose friendship with Dimitri was mentioned in the book Dark Celebration._

_The delaCruz brothers- Zacarias, Manolito, Rafael, Riordan, Nicolas are the "hosts" of the gathering. All but Zacarias have lifemates. _

_Jasmine and Solange – sister and cousin to Riordan's lifemate Juliette, both with some sort of traumatic past alluded to in previous books. At the end of Dark Possession they were to live at the ranch in a separate house._

_Gabriel, Lucian and Gregori Daratrazanoff- brothers who are among the most ancient and most powerful of the Carpathians. All with lifemates (Jaxon in Chapter 2 was Lucian's)_

_Skyler- Gabriel's adopted daughter, also with some sort of traumatic past, who found out she was Dimitri's lifemate in Dark Celebration but was too young and traumatized to be claimed. This story begins about 2 years after that event._

_Mikhail- Prince of the Carpathians_


	11. Chapter 11

The rest of the day was uneventful for Aleksandra - but not boring. She wandered the grounds, approaching some humans she saw working with cattle and spent a few pleasant hours watching them. They were friendly and open and spoke a lilting tongue that was very musical to the ears. She learned a bit of the language from hearing them talk and associating the words with the pictures she got in her head. She then amused herself the rest of the afternoon practicing the slurring "sh"s and curling "w"s of their melodic tongue.

She had also gathered a bit of information from the talkative humans about the place and their hosts, the de la Cruz family. The patron was Zacarias, apparently the oldest brother. The humans spoke of his wisdom and power in a tone that was almost reverential - privately Aleksandra thought he just sounded really bossy. There were four other brothers –she had met Rafael and Manolito the day before - who lived on the estate as well, which would explain the number of (empty) houses. The two women she had just met were kin to one of the brothers' lifemates and they occupied yet another house of their own. No mention was made of the baby's father and none of them projected any memories or thoughts of him.

Hmm, she thought. Strange. But even stranger to her, really, was their having been summoned to this place. Summoned , she thought. Even the word was so as if. She had come because of her brother - save for Julian they hadn't been around any Carpathians since the whole furor in Gabriel's house two years ago and she wasn't about to let him face the situation alone.

When it had happened, Aleksandra had been tormented by the possibility that she had done a bad thing. Now she knew otherwise. Without the bond and the intense connection with his lifemate, Dimitri was calmer, infinitely more at peace. Unmated, her brother had been angst-y to begin with and the addition of the lifebond to Skyler had made him nearly insufferable for the two years they had been linked. He had confided in her what he knew about the girl and Aleksandra was convinced that Skyler's tortured past was exacerbating everything. Dimitri's guilt at not having been able to protect her had colored every single action and thought of his for those two years and being especially sensitive to her brother, it had been damned near unbearable for her. He had tried to send her away again and she had pretended to comply but unknown to him she had not left him by himself for more than a few days at a time over that period. Being unmated had pushed him close to the edge, but being mated to someone who wanted no part of his life had ended up pushing him over. Aleksandra understood Skyler's resentment at being forced into a lifebond - she knew she herself would have hated it. But she did not understand the girl's callousness while watching her lifemate literally turning vampire before her eyes. That was the one thing Aleksandra would never be able to forgive.

Still things had turned out well. Though severing his lifemate bond had not made all of his guilt disappear, Dimitri was far more relaxed, and an added bonus was that Julian had come into their lives. Now that someone else knew about Aleksandra and his friend had pledged his protection, her brother had allowed her to spend time with Julian and his lifemate Desari and she had really enjoyed it. Now they considered her extended family and she liked that even more. The time since then had been really really nice.

Aleksandra sighed. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to change soon. Here. In this place. But although she dreaded it she knew that she couldn't hide.

_As wise man said – the only constant is change._

The main reason she was here was to protect her brother. She was almost certain he had been summoned because of her - the invitation (if it could be called that) had extended to his "family". She could tell from his tense demeanor that he felt it too. But just as he was here to protect her she was here to protect him. She wasn't going to let him bear any consequences of what she had done - had unilaterally chosen to do - those two years before. At eighteen she was certainly old enough to stand up for herself - even against a prince and a bunch of macho Carpathians.

She headed for the perimeter of the estate as the sun began to set, thinking to explore a bit of jungle before her brother rose and the gather started. As she stepped through the trees at the edge of the garden, however, she was knocked off her feet from behind and landed face first on the ground.

* * *

Rafael, having just risen, was walking with his lifemate Colby and her sister Ginny through the garden when sudden noises made him stop. Yells, crashes, the thudding sounds of hitting and being hit. Someone was having a knock-down, drag-out fight. Not sensing any real danger, however, Rafael glanced at Colby and sprinted in the direction of the noise. Probably some cowhands getting physical with each other. Brazilians, like most Latinos, wore their emotions on their sleeves and were quite capable of starting a fight over the smallest slight, real or imaginary. This would not be the first fight he broke up in all his long years living in close proximity to humans.

What he saw stopped him in his tracks however. "What the hell?"

Two figures engaged in an all-out battle greeted him in the copse, leaping from tree to tree and ground to branch and back again, first one pursuing the other and then turning the tables on each other. They kicked, threw each other to the ground, rolled to their feet only to do it again. They were sparing no punches - Rafael got a glimpse of more than one bloody nose, and the sound of the hits - made with skin on skin - was evidence that neither of them was faking it. Suddenly one produced a long staff- just a broken branch, really - and the other did the same. One swung and the other ducked, swung again and the other jumped to avoid being whacked in the knees. They both leapt, one coming down with a strike directed at the head, the other blocking. The blow split one staff in two but the wielder seemed unconcerned, twirling the shorter sticks, now using them independently but with the same degree of skill as with the single staff. They twirled, hit, blocked, lashed out, rolled and jumped, knocking down flower pots and divesting trees of their leaves and plants of their flowers.

Suddenly a deafening whistle pierced through the air, freezing one fighter in mid-strike and the other in mid-parry. They both turned at the same time in the direction of the whistle. They froze, as if suddenly realizing they had an audience and then, surprisingly, exchanged glances as they straightened. Both were suddenly completely calm, lowering their weapons like nothing had happened.

But nothing hadn't happened.

"What's going on here?" Rafael asked at last, more flabbergasted than angry. That he hadn't sensed danger the entire time the pair were fighting disturbed him. One of the culprits was Dimitri's younger sister Aleksandra, who looked a little guilty but seemed unconcerned with the fact that her nose was bleeding and she had an absolute beauty of a black eye. However, her opponent, also bearing marks of battle, was a stranger to him.

He looked from the girl to the lanky newcomer, his eyes narrowing. If he was older than Aleksandra it wasn't by much. He looked like trouble. He had unruly sandy hair, falling almost to his shoulders, and naughty brown eyes in the kind of face that would make mothers who had been teenagers themselves lock up their own teenaged daughters. Had Aleksandra been his sister he would have locked her up himself, Rafael found himself thinking. As it was the urge was strong.

Then the boy smiled and the alarm bells in Rafael's head went up three octaves.


	12. Chapter 12

Rafael took a quick look over his shoulder. No, the boy hadn't been smiling at Ginny or his lifemate, who were both behind him. Still, Colby's appreciative expression and her little sister's openmouthed stare, both directed at the newcomer, did not bode well. His mood darkening, he turned back to the boy.

His grin had widened, displaying a spectacular set of even, white teeth. But the grin was directed not at the women but at the tall man who was slowly walking up to him with folded arms.

"When I get over being grateful you're alive," he heard Dimitri say, and it seemed to Rafael that he was speaking through clenched teeth. "You are going to have a lot of explaining to do."

The boy looked contrite -but only for a fleeting moment. Then he burst out laughing as Dimitri put his arms around him and hugged him hard. The boy returned the embrace as Aleksandra stood to one side, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. Their audience - Rafael, Colby, Ginny, Julian and some humans who had just come up, stood transfixed, as if wondering what strange thing would happen next.

At last Dimitri let go. "Brat," he said gruffly to the boy. "Go introduce yourself and beg forgiveness for this mess." Then to his sister "Aleksandra wipe that bloody nose." Blowing out a breath as the two complied, he threw a long-suffering glance Julian's way. "I have raised a pair of barbarians."

Julian gave him a heartfelt chuckle. "At least they're never boring." He turned to watch as the newcomer approached the spot where Rafael was standing with his lifemate and her sister, his position a deliberate protective barrier for the women. The tall boy bowed elaborately to him. "Stanislav Vyshinsky, at your service." He straightened and his face broke out into its infectious grin. "Apologies to the flower pots."

* * *

"Is it really necessary to stage an Ultimate Fighting Championship every time the two of you see each other?"

The boy's mouth dropped open "You know about the Ultimate Fighting Championship?"

Aleksandra gave her brother a sly glance. "He saw it at Julian's house. He's moved up a bit from Neanderthal status."

"A tiny bit," she added with a laugh as he swatted the back of her head.

"You're not hurt, are you, Shura?"

"Just my pride. I must have been really distracted for him to be able to sneak up on me like that."

"Excuses?," the boy gaped. "That's not like you."

Dimitri said drily "You do know that if there is any permanent damage I will skin you alive? And cut off your hair?"

The boy raised his hands in surrender at the last statement. Dimitri shook his head with a smile and reached up to muss his long locks. "Where have you been, Stas? We have had no word from you in weeks."

"He doesn't want you to know," Aleksandra put in.

Dimitri was about to say something but suddenly stopped in his tracks. His head lifted like he was listening.

After a moment Aleksandra spoke softly. "She's been trailing you since yesterday."

Dimitri turned troubled eyes to his sister, who looked away for a moment. "I did not know she was coming, Shura."

"I know." She turned back to him. "But she is here. She hasn't approached you yet, so at the moment it's your call."

Dimitri looked torn and despite knowing that it was a logical reaction given their past, Shura couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed. In her mind she understood her brother's urge to see Skyler, but her heart was ruled by the all-too-vivid memory of the other girl's rejection of him. The thought niggled at her that her brother hadn't actually been witness to Skyler's rejection, had had to take her word for it - maybe he didn't believe her? She sighed. No matter - his life was not hers to live, his choices not hers to make. She studied him a moment and then nodded. "We'll leave you two alone."

"Who's the chick?" he heard Stas ask Shura in a loud whisper as they walked away.

""His ex," the girl replied, not bothering to speak softly.

"No shit! The one who wouldn't have anything to do with him? She sits by and watches him turn vamp and now she wants to jump his bones?"

He heard Shura sigh. "I was hoping I was imagining picking up that vibe but I guess not."

Dimitri wanted to call out to his sister to rid her of the idea but a sound behind made him turn.

"Dimitri."

When she had first spotted him the night before, speaking to Julian Savage in the garden, Skyler's first instinct had been to hide. The sight of him had aroused consternation and bewilderment and a host of other emotions she had no names for. And why would there be names for them? What she was feeling had to be unprecedented, for what she – what they - had gone through had to be unprecedented. She was sure noone in the history of the world had ever rejected their lifemate on the verge of turning. And she was even surer that noone had ever had their lifebond severed.

Skyler thought back to when Dimitri had first recognized her. She had been in such turmoil, had felt such fear and, yes, anger towards him. She'd still been in a bad place at the time, hadn't gotten over her past, wasn't even close to being normal, and a Carpathian male laying a claim on her had set her back even further.

Or so she had thought.

Now, four years later, she knew better. She had spent two of those years blaming her dark state of mind on the situation, her inability to mingle with others on the dread that she felt over being bonded to a man she did not know. When Dimitri's sister had broken the bond she at first hadn't understood what happened. Dimitri had been such an overwhelming presence in her life despite the physical distance between them that the abrupt loss of contact had been a rude surprise.. She had first thought him dead - it wasn't til a while later that they had all figured out what happened. Gabriel, his brothers, the prince, indeed every Carpathian who knew, had all been shaken to the core by what the girl had done. Conversations for months had centered around whispered shouldn'ts and hushed couldn'ts. Shouldn't couldn't or otherwise one thing was clear to Skyler - her connection to Dimitri had been severed as cleanly and completely as if it had never been. There wasn't even a lingering shadow of it - the only things she had of him now were her own vague memories of the time they had so briefly met face to face. In her head she could remember how she had felt but she couldn't remember it in her heart – that feeling of being absolutely and totally connected to someone. It shocked her to her core to realize that she might actually be missing it. Missing him.

Now she couldn't help feeling that the anticipation may have been the worst part of the whole situation - she had talked to many of the Carpathian women and all of them had struggled with the lifemate bond in the beginning. Every last one of them had adjusted in the end and could no longer imagine life without their mates. Could it have been the same for her? Now she would never know.

It was incongruous but she had thought more about Dimitri in the two years they had not been connected than during the time they had been bonded. Back then she had been so horrified by the prospect that she had had to push thoughts of him away just to stay sane. Or so she had thought. She realized now - and couldn't understand why she hadn't realized then - that the way she had felt at the time had nothing to do with Dimitri. And everything to do with herself.

She looked at him now, tall, straight, relaxed. So different from the man she remembered and yet so the same. Just like she had last night she found herself thinking once more that she didn't remember him being this, this….. magnificent. It was not the word she would have used to describe him before - had it been her own tormented mind that had distorted her memory? He couldn't have changed that much and she couldn't believe she wouldn't have noticed how unique the blue of his eyes, how exquisite the lines of his mouth. How could it be that her heart had not tripped over itself then? Had he not had that wave of red in his cheeks, that velvet red on his lips? Had the smooth dark wave of his hair not made her fingers itch to touch it ?

He met her gaze with one forthright and steady. It made her blush furiously. It made her want to turn away but she could not and so she stood transfixed.

He smiled tentatively at her and instantly parts of her body reacted that made her blush even deeper. What was she doing here? How could she face him? What did she have to say that would make it right between them ? And why did it matter? She had spent two years cursing his existence. Why was she now bemoaning the fact that noone had ever warned her that the sight of a man could weaken knees?

"Don't be afraid," he said quietly when she had stood dumbstruck too long. "I won't hurt you. I could never hurt you."

But she had hurt him. Skyler bit her lip and found herself moving forward almost unconsciously. He did not move, was letting her take the lead. Skyler didn't know whether to be thankful or not. She stopped too close to him she realized when she found she had to look up at him. He was so tall, and though he was leanly built he seemed so hard so solid. So able to protect her, came a thought unbidden. She blushed again and hoped the dwindling light made it impossible for him to see it.

"Dimitri, I… I came to apologize."

He lifted his hand and it seemed he would shush her with a finger to her lips but he caught himself and pulled his hand back. Skyler found herself staring at his hand, his long slender fingers - an artist's hand, she thought almost insanely. Why was she noticing these things?

"There is no need," was the quiet reply.

"Oh but there is!," she blurted almost wildly. He glanced down and she was suddenly aware that she had grabbed his jacket. Embarrassed, she let her hands fall.

He gazed at her a moment and then moved to a low stone bench nearby. He sat down, as if aware of the fact that not having to look up at him would make the situation less uncomfortable for her. He motioned for her to sit beside him and Skyler complied, leaving a good two feet between them.

The silence was awkward. She knew he was waiting for her to talk, for her to take the lead. Looking back now she realized every single move she had made back then had branded her as a victim, had ascertained that everybody acknowledge she was a victim. So now it really shouldn't surprise her that he was respectful, awkward, mindful of her discomfort … he was merely treating her like she was the poor victim she had made sure everyone knew she was. Skyler didn't know why it annoyed her so much.

She spoke though she didn't really know what to say. She spoke because she knew that he would not.

"Dimitri, I have to say I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for," he told her again.

She turned to him. "I think I do. I realize now that I was beastly to you those two years we were bonded…"

"You were a child," he replied, in the same respectful, annoying tone. "What happened was frightening to you given your past. If there is anyone who needs to apologize it is me. For not easing your fears. For not protecting you when you needed me."

She looked at him now and the expression in his eyes told her that this had tormented him. That it tormented him still.

"You had no way of knowing," she said quickly, wanting to ease his guilt. "I've been working with Francesca and she told me that all my life my defense was to withdraw so far inside my head that there was really no way for anyone to hear me. You're not to blame, Dimitri."

His eyes told her that he was.

She wanted to reach out and touch him but didn't know how. She, who never wanted to touch or be touched, wanted to touch this man, to give him comfort and reassurance. She had seen him with his sister, realized from the way he couldn't be near her without mussing her hair or planting kisses on the top of her dark head, that touch was as much a language to them as the spoken word or Carpathian mind-speech. It shocked her all over again to realize that she wanted that for herself. She, who until then could barely abide being touched even by those closest to her.

"You are well?" he asked her suddenly, softly.

Was she? She supposed that was a matter of which way she looked at the situation. But she knew he was referring to her well-being relative to the severing of their lifebond. It was a moment before she could reply. "I am well," she said. "Thank you for asking." She realized she hadn't offered him the same courtesy. "And you?"

"I am well, thank you." He smiled at her for a moment, right into her eyes, and then both of them turned away abruptly. Too awkward. Too sweet. Skyler was lightheaded, could not seem to get enough air. It was the stress of having to face him, of having to apologize, she told herself. But was it?

Dimitri spoke again. "What my sister did - it had no bad effects on you?"

"I don't think so." I missed you, is all. The thought came unbidden and Skyler almost gaped at herself. How could she be thinking that? Getting him out of her mind had been the one thing she had desired above all others all that time they were connected. How could she possibly miss it?

"She did it to protect me," Dimitri continued. "If you were harmed in any way I am sorry."

"No, Dimitri," she said, finding the words at last. "I am sorry. Your sister had to do what she did because I refused to seal our bond. I - I have no excuse. At that moment I was frightened out of my mind and I couldn't abide the thought of being lifebonded to someone I didn't know."

You could have gotten to know me. Skyler lifted her eyes to him. The thought was as clear as if he had spoken out loud. The response to that was obvious to both of them - she hadn't wanted to. She looked away again and so did he. The relief that she had always thought would come with that admission didn't come.

"I hope you'll someday be able to forgive me," she murmured.

"There's nothing to forgive."

His hand suddenly enveloped hers, the pressure warm and gentle. Skyler turned to him, stunned. This time she could not look away, was held fast by his piercing eyes. They were still intense, still seemed to be able to see right through her, but it didn't hurt to look into them anymore. Back then looking into his eyes had made her want to run. Now all she wanted to do was stay put and drown.

"You restored color and emotion to me, that is a miracle in itself," he said earnestly to her. "It is you who need to forgive me - for not rescuing you when you most needed it. It seems I must live with that failure for the rest of my life. "

Skyler found herself studying the lines of his lips as he spoke. How soft they looked, she found herself thinking insanely. And even more insanely she found herself wondering how they would taste. She lifted her eyes to his again, his words barely registering in her fuddled brain. He was looking at her in that intense way of his and she realized she was swaying towards him, leaning closer. And even better, so was he. She felt those long, beautiful hands frame her face, and as his clean scent enveloped her and her eyes drifted dreamily closed, she felt his lips press against …. the top of her head. Skyler's eyes popped rudely open.

"I wish you well, Skyler," he murmured against her hair.

Wished her well? That didn't sound right. No, that sounded very much like a goodbye. As she opened her mouth to tell him to stay, to tell him she had a million things left to say to him, he rose.

"I must go," he said to her. "The prince has summoned me."

His tall frame loomed over her for a moment and she stared up at him, bereft, unable to say anything. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek and before she could even lean into the caress he was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

Stas and Aleksandra were seated at the very edge of the semicircle in what seemed to be a small outside amphitheatre. Manolito had ushered them there and they sat, waiting for the others. Much of the de la Cruz family was already milling around - Rafael and his lifemate Colby, Manolito's partner Mary Anne, Riordan ….

Suddenly Stas' head turned.

"Who is that? Sheena, queen of the jungle?"

Aleksandra turned to where Solange had come in with her cousin, Juliette, Riordan's lifemate. Even here she came with her weapons strapped to every part of her.

"She wants to be," she told Stas matter-of-factly. "But Sheena doesn't pack heat. GI Jane maybe?"

"She's hot."

Aleksandra burst into giggles. "You are such a whore." They both saw Solange suddenly stiffen and turn. All at once she was striding purposefully in their direction, her face like thunder. Aleksandra nudged Stas. "Ooohh here she comes. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe she wants to jump your bones."

The boy's eyebrows lifted as Solange came closer. "It looks more like she wants to kill me…"

The two of them watched transfixed as the young woman strode towards them, drawing a dagger from her arm-sheath. They had barely wondered at her state of mind when suddenly she was upon them, her eyes locked on Stas. She breathed a single word.

"_Jaguar!"_

* * *

Not two hundred meters from where Stas and Aleksandra were fending off Solange, Dimitri was facing down his own challenge. Two recent arrivals - the Daratrazanoff brothers, Gregori and Gabriel.

"You are going to deny that you were with my daughter, Dimitri?" Gabriel was saying, not bothering to hide his fury. "I can smell her on you!"

"She sought me out, not the other way around," Dimitri replied, his voice calm and patient.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Ask her if you doubt my word."

"She'll deny it to protect you!"

Dimitri's eyes flashed but he spoke with quiet dignity. "Why would she protect me? She has never wanted anything to do with me."

"Exactly my point. She has never wanted anything to do with you so why would she seek you out?'

"Ask her that."

"I'm asking you !, " Gabriel roared.

Suddenly Julian was there, putting himself between them.

"Get a hold of yourself, Gabriel," he said patiently. "There is no cause for trouble."

"Oh no? This man has my daughter's scent all over him!"

"Not once in four years have Dimitri's actions toward your daughter ever been anything but honourable. Even you have to admit that, Gabriel."

The other man paused, his eyes narrowing.

Julian spoke again. "Ask your daughter if he has dishonored her in any way and if he has I will kill him myself."

"I don't need you to do my work for me." Gabriel snarled.

Julian switched tactics. "Talk to your daughter before you rush into anything you'll regret. We were all summoned by Mikhail. This is his gather. It would be disrespectful to disrupt it.'

Gabriel held his temper but just barely. Then he swung on his heel and walked away, followed closely by Gregori.

None of them saw the shadow that slunk away through the trees.

* * *

"Solange! Get a hold of yourself! _Solange!"_

Riordan was hard-pressed to hold the young woman back as she snarled and repeatedly tried to throw herself at the two newcomers. He sensed her trying to shift but for some reason she remained in human form. Juliette was helping him restrain her but he could feel her rage as well.

"How dare you bring jaguar to this place!" she hissed at the two newcomers, who sat there, not looking particularly concerned that Solange wanted to kill them. They however had the grace to look a bit surprised. Glancing at each other they both shrugged.

"It wasn't our idea to come here," the girl said mildly. "We were called."

"Liar!" Solange spat.

"Zacarias would never summon jaguar to the ranch!" Juliette seconded vehemently.

"Who's Zacarias?'

Riordan barely caught Solange as she threw herself at the girl again. The girl didn't even flinch. This time he spoke.

"Zacarias is my brother. Head of the family and of this ranch. Juliette is right - he would never invite jaguar here."

The girl's brows lifted. "Are you aware that these two over here are jaguar as well?"

"Of course! Juliettte is my life-"

"Just checking," Aleksandra cut in. She looked at him expectantly, obviously waiting for an explanation.

"He is jaguar male," he said, realizing suddenly how it might sound foolish.

Aleksandra didn't even blink. "That's supposed to be news to me?" she said to Riordan, a definite hint of insolence creeping into her voice. These people were just too much.

"Jaguar males are not welcome here."

Aleksandra gazed at Riordan for a moment. All at once she remembered the situation with Solange's other jaguar cousin and her baby boy. She didn't know why but these people certainly had something against male jaguars, no matter what age. Solange may have been overreacting, but she wasn't faking that rage. Or the wealth of fear that she thought she was keeping well hidden beneath it. It piqued Aleksandra's curiosity a bit but wasn't enough to hold her interest. Certainly not enough to stay where she obviously wasn't welcome.

"Easily remedied," she said to Riordan, rising with a pleasant smile. "Let's go, Stas."

The boy rose with leisurely indolence but before either of them could take a step, a voice came from behind Riordan.

"Noone is going anywhere. I called this meeting and everyone stays till this is over."

Riordan turned and sure enough the Carpathian prince was standing there. His tone of voice, his posture, brooked no contention.

* * *

"We, too, have felt this disturbance, Mikhail," Rafael was saying. "The rainforest has always had its dangers but recently I have felt a different kind of darkness take hold."

Mikhail nodded. "There seem to be two - how shall we call them- hotspots. One in the eastern mountains of Russia, the other here. We do not know why as of yet, but this calls for extra caution. We have already established that our women and children are being targeted and their safety must be our priority. I do not doubt the strength or battle prowess of our Carpathian males but none - _not one_ - will ever be able to protect them twenty-four hours out of every day. I have decided that in addition to taking heightened precautions, the women must be taught to defend themselves - especially the ones who walk in sunlight at hours when we cannot protect them."

"Solange can help train the women," Juliette rose to her feet to speak. "She is a brilliant fighter and …." She stopped suddenly and whirled to the girl sitting quietly in the corner with the boy jaguar. "You beg to differ, newcomer?"

Aleksandra's brows lifted in surprise. "Me? I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it," Juliette said coldly.

Stas began to chuckle softly and Aleksandra elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut up!" she hissed.

"Don't bother to deny it," Juliette continued. "Come now, we have all heard of your great powers, now let us hear your expertise on the matter of battle."

Aleksandra opened her mouth and then shut it, thinking a moment. "I just…" she struggled for words "….. probably have a different view on fighting than you people. I mean… I wasn't raised around here." Stas snorted and she elbowed him again.

"Really?" Juliette walked slowly towards her and there was no mistaking the implied threat. Stas' demeanor changed instantly. He didn't move or even change expression but his eyes shifted color, a warning sign only those closest to him would have noticed. "Well, why don't you enlighten us? We would be interested in hearing your …. _different…. _view on combat."

Aleksandra sighed a little sigh. She really didn't want any trouble. Obviously sitting quietly in the corner wasn't enough. The notion that she really needed to be somewhere else grew stronger. "It's not worth listening to,' she said softly, a plea to be left alone.

"I think it is,' Juliette said. "Come now we would really like to hear this different view. I saw you watching the practice fights this morning. You do not think Solange is strong?"

"She is strong."

"You do not think she is fast?"

"She is fast."

"You do not think she is deadly?"

"She probably could be."

"And all these things - they do not count in your different view of what makes a good fighter?"

"They count."

"And so? Why is it that you disagree with our view- no, with _the fact_- that Solange is a great fighter?"

Aleksandra remained silent.

Stas, his eyes dark now, said softly. "Answer her."

"Yes, answer me, wolf-girl-who-runs-with-jaguar."

Aleksandra's eyes flashed at what clearly had been intended as an insult. At last she spoke. "She's predictable."

The de la Cruz brothers, quiet on one side, exchanged glances.

"And how would you know this?"

Again Aleksandra fell silent.

"_Tell her,_" breathed Stas at her side.

"Yes, tell us, please."

"Because she attacked me in the jungle."

A murmur went through the group. Juliette's mouth fell open in surprise and she turned to her cousin. It seemed Solange did not know where to look.

Juliette recovered. "Let's say this is so. Given that black eye of yours that has yet to heal, how do we know Solange didn't beat you at this battle?"

"I'm not the one with the scar on my neck."

This time gasps were audible. Zacarias de la Cruz's reaction was swift. "You dared to put a mark on someone under the protection of this house?," he roared.

Aleksandra lifted her brows again, not the least bit intimidated. "How was I supposed to know she was under the protection of your house? And what was I supposed to do? Sit still and let her rip out my throat?"

"You will apologize."

"In your dreams," she burst out laughing. It was obvious to all listening that it wasn't even a sarcastic laugh. She truly thought it funny. Thought _him _funny.

Behind her Julian Savage shut his eyes and groaned inwardly. Of all the macho, overbearing Carpathians, Zacarias de la Cruz was the most overbearing, the most macho. In this place his word was law. Within his family he was omnipotent. Julian was one hundred percent sure Zacarias de la Cruz had never _ever_ been thought funny. He glanced quickly at Dimitri. His silence was surprising given that his sister was under fire. But then again his friend had been springing surprise after surprise on him lately. He was letting Aleksandra manage her own battle but his tense, hyper-alert posture said he was ready to spring to her defense at any instant.

As Julian expected, however, Mikhail defused the situation.

"Sit down all of you, " the prince said. "We're deviating from the matter at hand here. Let me just say that everyone who is here is here because I asked them to be. Anything that happens is my responsibility and any merited apologies will be given by me. _Later. _Right now we need to address the matter of security."

Julian glanced over at Dimitri, whose eyes were dark with tension. They both had a feeling the truce wouldn't last long.


	14. Chapter 14

Skyler sat quietly, sandwiched between the hulking forms of Gabriel and his brother Gregori. She was extremely uncomfortable being around these people she barely knew, especially with all this tension running through everyone. She had almost bolted at the energy crackling in the air when the jaguar woman went for Dimitri's sister and her companion, but Gabriel had slipped his arm around her and sent soothing thoughts her way. This despite the fact that he had been furious only minutes earlier.

She had stood up to him, insisting that nothing untoward had passed between her and Dimitri. That they had simply talked. She hadn't bothered to mention that for a moment she had wanted something untoward to happen. She suspected, much to her chagrin, that he knew anyway.

Even now her eyes kept stealing across to where Dimitri was seated beside Julian. She could only see his back but she found herself again crazily thinking of how broad his shoulders were, how ramrod straight his spine was, how smooth a wave his dark hair made from the neat cord at his nape. It surprised her how much she wanted to look at him but what surprised her even more was that she now wanted to know him. To tell him things. To have him tell her things. When she had approached him in the glen earlier, she had meant to do it for closure - to apologize for what she had done, for what she had not done, to put to rest what might have been. Her memories of him were of a dark, forceful personality, of someone to fear - she had been surprised and befuddled to encounter a gentle soul, with an aura of loving energy about him. Gentle, but not weak, for the energy that surrounded him was tinged as much with protectiveness as with affection. Had the fear she had felt for him truly been all in her own mind? She had not expected to sense the fierce love he had for his sister, to feel beyond any uncertainty that he was loved in return. She had not expected to be annoyed that he had, for all intents and purposes, told her so long, farewell. She had not expected to want the impossible.

The Carpathian prince was not one to tolerate prejudice towards any race or species. Gender, however, was a tricky subject when dealing with Carpathians for the males tended to be protective to the point of absurdity. They had touched on this subject in the past and it hadn't been a productive discussion. Zacarias was a prime example, coming to the defense of a woman barely related to him, who, as far as Mikhail understood, did not even acknowledge his authority over her. He sighed. He was not going to tolerate any dissension over the subject of the women learning to defend themselves.. He had not come to the decision without much deep deliberation - not to mention many spirited arguments with his lifemate. Everyone had to abide - the survival of their race depended on it.

Juliette's behavior had been peculiar to say the least. Volunteering her cousin's services to teach their women how to fight was strange enough but the way she had verbally attacked Dimitri's sister had been an eye-opener.

And Dimitri's sister? He sighed again. He had not come across a more convoluted enigma in his very long life. On the surface she seemed almost ordinary… indeed one would not have noticed her presence had Juliette not gone for her. But that, Mikhail thought, was perhaps the most potentially dangerous thing about her. Solange, for instance, you could sense a mile away, her volatile personality broadcasting strongly, preceding her, announcing her coming. Even young Skyler, grown up somewhat from the first time he had met her four years before, had a palpable aura of power around her that was unmistakable. This girl's presence, on the other hand, was so neutral she could have passed for a powerless human. If he hadn't heard her story personally from both Gabriel and Gregori he would never have equated it with the girl sitting there.

He studied her from across the clearing, trying to get a feel of her mind. Nothing. It was almost like she wasn't even there, her mind taking up no space at all. It was strange and very very disturbing. And obviously upsetting to the others present was the fact that she was with a boy jaguar and that they shared a closeness that was unmistakable. Were they lifemates? Although they were probably of age it didn't seem to him like that was the case. They had also been caught fighting. Really fighting, skin-on-skin, with weapons and without, and with enough skill to give a seasoned warrior like Rafael de la Cruz pause. Stranger and stranger. And where the hell had the girl developed the gumption to face down an ancient like Zacarias in his own home? Though maybe he shouldn't have been surprised at that - she had faced down Gabriel in his home not two years ago. To do what she had done that fateful day had to have taken an unprecedented amount of courage.

He had tasked Julian to keep an eye on the girl instead of taking custody of her as Gregori and Gabriel had wanted him to do at first. He saw now that it had been the right decision. From what he now knew about her, he understood that she would have had total, utter disregard for his authority and had he forced his hand he would have made permanent enemies of both her and her brother. He could not do with enemies within his ranks right now - Dimitri was a warrior of such caliber that Mikhail couldn't afford to lose him, and if the stories about this girl were true then he needed her to be on their side as well. What had happened two years before had yet to be fully understood – but if Dimitri was evidence then it certainly merited careful investigation. To everyone who had known him before he looked startlingly good, and the energy that surrounded him had none of the despairing darkness of two years ago. If severing his bond with Skyler had brought such a positive transformation, did that bode well for his race? Or ill ? Bringing Dimitri and his sister together with Gabriel and Skyler in the same place at the same time was a huge risk. Asking them to work together was going to be the most difficult thing he had probably had to do in his long life.

It would certainly put to test his mettle as prince.

* * *

Suddenly Aleksandra was muttering cuss words in all the languages she knew.

Stas frowned. _What? What's wrong?_

_Look at him._

_What?_

_Just look at him._

Stas glanced briefly over his shoulder at Dimitri. He found himself turning abruptly back, muttering under his breath "Holy shit."

Aleksandra turned to him, her eyes dark. _Two years. Two years it's taken him to get the damned guilt out of his mind. Five minutes with her and his aura is shot to pieces all over again !_

Stas sat quietly, not knowing what to say to her. For a moment he almost thought the girl would cry.

Did you see, Stas? Did you see?

_I saw. I'm sorry, Shura. Are you sure it's because of that girl?_

_How could it be anything else? Can't you feel all that angst and despondency projecting from where she's sitting?_

_Maybe she's just horny._

_That's just part of it. Five f&*?# minutes. Shit on a stick!_

* * *

Mikhail glanced upwards. A storm seemed to be brewing. Even in the darkness he could see the clouds swirling low, smell the threat of rain. Rays of lightning flashed. Rafael rose, calling on everyone to move indoors and he and his two brothers began to usher everyone towards the main house. This was apparently not unusual weather for central Brazil.

The prince turned as he sensed a new presence. Nicolas, the fifth de la Cruz brother, had at last made his appearance and was striding towards him, his lifemate Lara following close by. Mikhail smiled in their direction. Lara was doing them a great service, helping them destroy microbes that infected and killed their children. But the stress of the work was telling and he could see the lines of tension on both their faces. Even the energy that surrounded them felt fractured. He had heard that their relationship was strained but he sincerely hoped his sources had been wrong. Mikhail extended his arm in greeting but just as Nicolas reached out to clasp it a flash of lightning struck, so strong the light blinded him, so close the thunder exploded at the same instant. When the sizzle of electricity subsided, the Carpathian prince opened his eyes to mayhem.


	15. Chapter 15

Mikhail bent, still feeling the echo of the massive lightning bolt that had stunned everyone. People all around him were reeling in panic, some picking themselves off the ground. Someone was screaming. He stared, frowning, at Nicolas de la Cruz's tall form sprawled on the ground, unconscious. The screaming was coming from his lifemate Lara, on her knees beside him. What in hell? A direct lightning hit? Gregori ! He called to the Carpathian healer.

Gregori had problems of his own. He had been talking to Dimitri's two young charges when the lightning hit and knocked them to the ground. The boy-jaguar actually had to help him back on his feet. He was vaguely aware of unstable energy all around him, just like when a spike of power sparks short circuits and burns electrical connections. This had been the equivalent of a truly colossal electricity surge. People were literally staggering and for a moment he found his mind couldn't even tune into the Carpathian wavelength.

Suddenly Savannah's voice was there. _Gregori! What happened? Why aren't you answering me?_

Gregori groaned at the pain that brought on.

_I am fine, sivamet. Some bad weather around here is all._ He began to soothe her in his mind, at the same time trying to figure out what could have happened. Had it truly been just bad weather? Or were they under attack?

Obviously the same possibility had occurred to Mikhail for he was calling out to everyone to move indoors, out of the open. Gregori also became aware the prince was calling him inside his head.

_We need you! Nicolas is hurt._

Screaming was coming from Mikhail's direction and he turned to obey the summons. Suddenly, he became aware that the boy-jaguar was bending over Dimitri's sister, who remained crumpled on the ground, not moving. He was shaking her, trying to rouse her.

"Shura! Shura, wake up!"

"What the hell has she done now?" Gabriel's face was like thunder as he approached them, Skyler in tow. Suddenly Dimitri was there, putting his tall form between his sister and the approaching ancient. He remained silent but the ruby blaze in his eyes told everyone that he would not be playing passive. Not this time.

"She hasn't done anything Gabriel," Gregori said patiently to his brother. He understood what Gabriel meant. The last time they had felt a surge of power this strong was two years before when Aleksandra had severed Dimitri and Skyler's lifebond. This was not the same, however. The power surge had not come from the girl. Gregori was sure of it. "Aleksandra was talking to me when it happened. She didn't know what hit her any more than anyone else did."

Gabriel looked unconvinced.

Aleksandra was coming awake now, blinking. Stas crouched before her, helped her to a sitting position. "You okay, Shura?"

Aleksandra gazed at him stupidly, unable to speak. His face was moving in and out of focus and she blinked and shook her head to clear it. And instantly regretted it as silver knives cut through her brain. Or what felt like silver knives. Blunt ones. Hacking away, clanging and slashing. Nausea hit her in a rolling wave and she retched violently, doubling over. Arms went around her to hold her steady. She hadn't eaten anything all day so there was nothing to bring up but her empty stomach heaved anyway.

"You okay?" Stas was saying in her ear when the retching stopped. "The lightning didn't fry your brains did it?"

Aleksandra was vaguely aware that Stas was holding her upright. Dimitri was close, as well, she could hear his familiar soothing voice, though she was too confused to make out what he was saying. And someone else, A big man with surprisingly gentle hands. Gregori. He was carefully forcing her eyelids open, bending very close. He murmured something about her pupils being huge. Pupils?

"She's in shock," Gregori was saying. "Hold her still for a moment." And then to her. "Are you cold, Aleksandra?"

She was.

"Doesn't mean much," she heard Stas reply. "She's always cold."

"That's ridiculous," said another voice. Gabriel's."Carpathians can regulate body temperature. Why should she ever be cold?"

That was the question clanging around in Gregori's mind now. Also, the remains of a black eye were still visible on her face. Rafael had told him about the little battle in the woods - should she not have healed by now?

The girl's slight body shuddered visibly and the healer in Gregori returned to the forefront.

"Shura, are you okay?" the boy holding her asked again.

"Give her a minute," Gregori said, his tone gentle. He could feel her fragmented energy gathering, coming together. His own senses remained on full alert, scanning around them, watchful of a possible attack. He could feel Dimitri doing the same.

"I'm fine," Aleksandra after a bit and then sat up, holding her head in her hands.

"We need to get inside," Gregori said gently. "Do you think you can stand to be moved?"

"Gimme a second," the girl managed, gulping down the nausea that threatened to upchuck her insides all over again.

Across the clearing on the opposite side of the amphitheatre, Mikhail was helping Lara peel Nicolas off the ground. The woman had been hysterical only moments before, convinced for some strange reason that her lifemate was dead. Colby had been there to soothe her, assuring Lara that they had all had their connections to their lifemates cut off for a little while. It was exactly as if the surge of electricity had short-circuited their connections. For Mikhail, too, it had been several minutes before he had felt Raven's mind reaching out to him. The sense of aloneness, however brief, had been terrifying.

But Nicolas was alive, if a bit stunned. Mikhail was thankful for small blessings. He glanced across the clearing and saw Gregori had his hands full - Nicolas was not the only one to have suffered from the hit. That was why Gregori had not responded to his summons.

He had to get his people indoors. The lightning might simply have been Mother Nature flexing her muscles but he could not take that chance. They were way too exposed out here and the lightning bolt had left all of them shellshocked. The situation was prime for an attack.

He glanced at Nicolas, whose expression remained blank for a few moments. He didn't even seem to register the presence of his sobbing lifemate, who had thrown her arms round him and was sobbing on his shoulder. Nicolas' arms remained limp at his sides and as Mikhail bent closer he saw that the pupils of his eyes were enormous. This did not bode well. They needed Gregori.

And he needed to figure out exactly what in hell had happened.

* * *

Many hours later Aleksandra sat in the grove and waited patiently. It was close to dawn and the place had finally quieted down. People were getting their connections back, and so the crazed energy was settling somewhat. Amazing, thought Aleksandra, that having mind-connections cut off from lifemates could cause such panic. As if most of them hadn't spent centuries alone inside their heads. Now they couldn't stand being disconnected for a few minutes, a few hours. Juliette and Riordan had so far taken the longest to get reconnected - Aleksandra had had to bite her tongue to keep from saying that it was because jaguars were wired all screwy to begin with. It might have been the truth but she figured nobody would want to hear it. But it was A Fact. She knew. She had grown up with one.

That left only one pair to have to get their connection back. Aleksandra sighed. She was being blamed for what happened, of course. It didn't matter that Gregori, much to her surprise, had backed her up vehemently, saying she had been talking to him when the lightning had struck. Which had been the truth. She didn't understand what had happened any more than anyone else did.

But something had happened.

She turned as the presence made itself known. Tall and dark, no surprise there. Brooding, seething with confusion, no surprise there either. Anger directed at her, the least of all the non-surprises.

She sat quietly as the newcomer came up to her.

"Explain to me," said Nicolas de la Cruz through clenched teeth. " what in hell is happening?"

"My name is Aleksandra," she said patiently.

"I know who you are!"

"No you don't - I've never met you in my life. I didn't know you even existed."

"I know of you. They speak of you often."

Aleksandra nodded slowly, knowing what that meant.

"You will explain to me what the hell just happened."

"I have no idea. I thought you would explain it to me, seeing as you're the ancient."

"I had nothing to do with this !"

"Neither did I !"

"I find that hard to believe."

"You're not the only one. It doesn't change anything."

"So you cannot explain this to me? How this happened? How I lost the connection with my lifemate?"

"Everyone lost their connections with their lifemates. You heard them ."

"Not like this !" he hissed. "Everyone else had their connections returned to them. Everyone but us. I cannot hear Lara. " His eyes glowed ruby red as he took a step towards her. " But I can hear you. I can feel you." His expression was twisted. Full of… hatred? Disgust?

Aleksandra looked calmly at what would be the greatest challenge of her life. As was her mettle, she stared it down. Stared him down.

"You know what it is," she said quietly. "Neither of us knows how or why. But we know what. And who. You are Nicolas and I am Aleksandra. And it seems I am now your dirty mistress."

_

* * *

_

Shura ! What's happening? Are you okay?

_Talk to me later, Stas._

_Has he ripped your throat out yet?_

_No but he's building up to it._

_Lemme know if he does._

_Okay. You get to inherit my comic book collection._

* * *

"That's impossible," Nicolas was saying hoarsely.

"You don't know how much I wish that were true, " Aleksandra said feelingly.

"This has never happened before."

"No. I suppose it has not."

"So you severed my lifebond with Lara? Took it for yourself?"

Aleksandra's mouth dropped open in indignation. "How many times do I have to tell you? I DIDN'T DO THIS ! I don't even know you!"

"You are remarkably calm. Like you were expecting this."

"Expecting? Even my exaggerated imagination couldn't have come up with this ! Bloody hell do you really think I want to be tied to some macho Carpathian who can't get over himself? Who's already tied to someone else? Who likes to be dark and suffery and broody? I don't. Denying the obvious, however, is not one of my many vices."

"So you do not deny that you have somehow managed to become my lifemate?"

"I do not deny that technically I appear to be bonded to you. The part about me 'managing to become' your lifemate - that I totally deny. I don't want you, dude. Any more than you want me."

"You can see this bond?"

"Yes."

"Can anyone else?"

"Stas."

"The boy-jaguar? So he knows? Does anyone else?"

"Not that I know of. Don't worry, noone will find out our dirty little secret from me."

"Can you sever this the way you did your brother's?"

Aleksandra looked at him. "I think so. But I'll have to wait a bit. That lightning bolt shorted me out. I can't even shapeshift at the moment."

A rustle in the trees made them both turn. "It's not safe here. I don't want anybody overhearing us. Noone can know about this. Let's go somewhere else."

"I told you I can't shift yet. Or fly …"

Before she knew what was happening, strong arms had folded around her and they were airborne, going so fast that they had shifted from warm weather to cold in a matter of seconds. He was taking her somewhere very far….

_Wait! Wait!_ She said and lashed out instinctively. Her kick caught him solidly in the shin and Nicolas cried out.

Rage and fury and confusion burst out of him and suddenly he was flinging the girl away from him in mid-flight, sending her hurtling to the waters below them. Maybe that would cool her off…

Through the unholy connection he had with her, he registered her surprise at the feel of falling, of being thrown, the stronger-than-he-expected blow of hitting the water. Then an entirely new sensation filled him, something that he had never felt before. Extreme cold - she/he was _freezing_ - and then airless terror as her lungs seized and her heart threatened to stop.

Nicolas' breath caught. What had he done?

_Shura ! Shura ! Are you all right? By the gods, I'm sorry. Forgive me, please._

No. She tried to cough through chattering teeth. She had never been so cold in her life and for someone who had grown up in the mountains near Siberia that was saying a lot. And the asshole who was responsible for her being this cold was hovering over her like a useless lump, projecting thoughts of concern and regret into her addled brain. She flipped it rudely shut.

She saw Nicolas flinch in surprise as she shoved him out of her mind and nodded in satisfaction. Her other powers might not be back yet but that she could do. His angst was driving her nuts anyway and she couldn't stomach his fake concern.

"Not fake!" he hissed. " Why didn't you tell me you can't regulate your own body temperature?"

_I don't recall you asking._

Nicolas looked at her in exasperation but this was quickly dissolved by concern. He willed her soaked clothes away, formed dry ones to replace them. She kept shivering, so violently that her teeth knocked together, and care bit deep. Taking off his own coat he settled behind her on the ground and wrapped it around her, drawing her close to give her his own heat.

_Go away, Nicolas._

"Not until you're warm. I am truly sorry, Shura."

_That's my nickname. You don't get to use it. Only my friends get to use it._

It surprised Nicolas a bit that he had used the nickname instinctively. Then he reminded himself that he shouldn't be surprised that he knew these things for after all he was … her lifemate.

He growled deep in his throat at the thought.

_Likewise, you jerk. Go away. I'll get warm on my own._

His arm instinctively drew her tighter against him. "You do not command in this relationship, little one." he snarled in her ear before he could help himself. Before he could wonder why it even bothered him that she wanted him to leave.

_Since when is this a relationship? _came her voice in his head, dripping with sarcasm. It also annoyed him that she could speak to him in his head but had completely shut him from hers.

"Since never. It is a temporary setback, nothing more."

_I agree._

The feel of her in his arms was telling him otherwise, however. Against his better judgment his body was reacting to the proximity of hers. Noone but Lara had ever made heat go through him so quickly. His lips were seeking her skin before he had a coherent thought, and he was nuzzling aside the collar of his own jacket to find the pulse on the side of her neck.

_Don't ._ Aleksandra said to him in his mind, but her thoughts were suddenly all over the place. Her eyes had drifted shut, her head lolling to one side to give him access to her vein. Nicolas' fangs scraped tender skin and then ….

All at once Aleksandra found herself eating dirt. She had been flung rudely aside and Nicolas was on his feet, his back to her.

"I will not be seduced by an abomination," he gritted through clenched teeth. The disgust in his voice made the girl recoil.

"I wasn't seducing you !"

He whirled to her. "Sever this unholy bond before we both do something vile - something we'll both regret!"

"I told you. I have to wait !"

"Find a way !" He roared, all imperious command, all alpha male. Then he disappeared into the night.

Aleksandra found herself staring after him. She had never felt so dirty in her life.


	16. Chapter 16

Nicolas woke to a summons. Instantly he recognized the touch of the mind that had made it. Willing Lara to stay asleep he broke the earth above him and rose. The person he expected to see was there, standing by his resting place. How she had gotten through the wards he didn't know. Didn't want to know. He looked upon the face that had been imprinted into his brain so recently. So unwelcomely. Small, elfin, framed with dark hair so shiny it looked almost wet. The eyes, enormous, were clear in the dim light but he knew them to be blue.

"It's done," she said without preamble. She tossed his jacket at him and he caught it before it hit him in the face. Then she turned and left.

Nicolas stood unmoving. It was the truth. He could no longer feel her in his mind, his soul. In his bones. This was what he had wanted. He had not expected to be touched by a sense of loss. To feel that he had been on the cusp of some intriguing experience and turned his back on it. Last night his unsteady world had been knocked completely off its moorings. Now the connection to the stranger was gone. Now things could be again as they were. He had gotten exactly what he had wanted.

Or had he?

* * *

Aleksandra sat in the garden. She would be pacing if she wasn't so tired. She wanted out of this place. Had she been any stronger, had she been able to shift, she wouldn't bother waiting for her brother to return so he could take her home. She would have gone herself. After the damned lightning blast the night before she had regained some of her power but she had used all that up doing…. doing what she had to do.

It had not been easy. Had her memories of severing Dimitri's bond simply been hazy or had this just been totally different? She had tested the bond at the beginning and realized, with more than a little consternation, that it didn't react to being zapped. She threw bits of energy at it at first but the damned thing - yes it was a thing, she had to think of it as a thing - just seemed to absorb it. The sparks of energy simply seemed to dissolve into it, become part of the bond. That set off all sorts of questions in her brain. Could she sever something on herself ? Maybe she couldn't use her own energy on herself? Panic was not an emotion that Aleksandra was familiar with but she became very close friends with it that night. And she had gone through the whole gamut of emotions that panic brought along like family – fear, helplessness, desperation. Most of all she hated the completely blank brain that the emotion called forth - for a moment there she could not think for the intensity of it. It had taken all the discipline that had been drilled into her her entire life to pull herself out of immobility.

What she had done she would never have done had she not wanted out of the bond so desperately. She hated being connected to someone she had not chosen to connect with, someone she did not trust, whose mind was filled with such resentment that it tainted her own outlook. She could keep him out of her mind but only just. He remained too close for comfort and the energy it took to simply keep the barriers up was exhausting.

Forcing herself to think rationally, she had taken the problem on step by step, fighting panic the whole way. First up was finding a source of energy different from her own - the more different the better. The closest answer was the small power plant that the de la Cruzes had built next to the river, which fed off the energy of the rushing water to supply the ranch with electricity. Yes. Enough energy - even too much really - and she had never worked with this kind before, but energy was energy if you really got down to it. Where it fed off the river the energy was too unstable, waxing and waning with the onslaught of the water, but further inside, where the energy was converted and then stored, there was a stable source. Her next challenge was tapping it without frying her own brains. She remembered thinking that if that didn't kill her Dimitri surely would when he found out. The magnitude of risk was insanely high but she had wanted out _so bad_.

She felt relief now that it was over. What she didn't understand, however, was why she felt so weak, when the energy she had used was mostly not hers. And not just that - her head felt heavy, her throat scratchy and she had been sneezing and wiping a runny nose all day. She also felt cold - but then again she was always cold so that was nothing new. Her brother was going to be pissed. He always believed that not taking enough blood led to her getting sick and she had always been careful not to have anything happen that would fortify that belief. He had tried to feed her the night before but she had been dizzy and sick to her stomach and had promptly thrown it all up.

She looked about, restless, wishing Dimitri would come already so they could go home. Earlier, he had sensed something was wrong and had asked her about it.

_I'll tell you about it, but not here, _she had said to him. She fully intended to spill everything, but not until they were two continents away on the other side of the world. Home.

_Whatever it is we'll figure it out,_ he had said to her, and she had had to blink away uncharacteristic tears.

A mewling sound broke her from her thoughts. More from wanting to kill time than out of any real curiosity she followed the sound to a nearby tree and squinted up. Perched on a branch was the jaguar cub she had rescued when she had first come.

"Have you gotten away again? ," she said as she reached up for him. He swiped a paw at her as she lifted him off the branch, his claw catching her arm. Aleksandra hissed, more in surprise than in true pain and her grip loosened. The cub struggled, fell in to a nearby bush bristling with brambles. It squealed in pain and rolled to its feet. Aleksandra made another grab for him but he pulled free, leaving a smudge of blood on her hands from a bunch of scratches.

"Wait! Come back!"

* * *

"I sent Dimitri and the jaguar boy with Gabriel," Mikhail was saying to Gregori. "They are trying to get a feel for what is happening around here, to see how widespread the taint is, and if it is anything like in Russia. I want them to do it independently of any of the brothers so they can later compare notes without bias."

"Dimitri with Gabriel?" Gregori said meaningfully.

"I sent Julian as nanny, never you worry."

"Dimitri I understand, but why the boy? Do you think jaguar will pick up something that Carpathian cannot?"

"Yes, that is exactly it. I believe the boy will…."

Both of them caught the summons at the exact same instant. It clanged like a siren inside their heads. Mikhail and Gregori glanced briefly at each other before going to mist. What now?

* * *

Outside in the garden, they materialized onto a scene straight out of a bad horror movie.

There was blood everywhere. Manolito with his arms locked around his brother Zacarias, as if restraining him, Rafael doing the same to Riordan, Colby and Lara to Juliette. All were covered in blood. Juliette's sister on one side, holding her squalling baby and sobbing over the unconscious form of Solange. And on the ground Nicolas, holding a bloody bundle in his arms.

Mikhail barked orders to Gregori but the Carpathian known as the Dark One was already a step ahead of him, kneeling beside Nicolas. He had already realized who the victim was - Dimitri's sister Aleksandra. In full healer mode, he made a quick assessment. The ragged, gaping hole on the side of the girl's neck was consistent with a savage attack by beast or vampire. His gaze traveled down the girl's body and he realized there was more than just one wound. Her side gaped below her ribcage and her left thigh was equally bloody. Nicolas was trying to give her blood. It was clear that this had not been a random attack - each bite had targeted a major organ or blood vessel and the girl was conscious but fading fast. All at once, images of what had happened froze him where he was.

Mikhail had taken Manolito aside as Rafael had taken charge of his two dazed brothers and sister-in-law. Solange was also coming back to consciousness.

"What happened?" he snapped at Manolito, a command, not a question.

"The baby. Jasmine's baby. He got lost again and Shura must have found him. He tried to get away from her, probably got scratched in the bushes somewhere …. Solange was searching in jaguar form and when she picked up his scent and blood, she thought Shura was hurting the baby so she attacked. Shura knocked her unconscious and that was when … they…. attacked."

"They? Who?"

Mikhail saw Manolito swallow. Uncharacteristic, as he had always been the most forthcoming of the brothers.

"Juliette first," he said at last, very quietly. "Then Riordan. And Zacarias."

"_Three_ of them? By the gods, why?"

"Even holding the baby, she managed to knock out Solange, Juliette, and stun Riordan. Only when Riordan and Zacarias attacked in tandem did they…" he trailed off, unable to continue for the horror of it.

"But _why_? Why attack the girl?"

"They thought the babe was in danger. And after what happened last night…"

"By all that is holy, what have they done?"

They glanced over at where Gregori and Nicolas were bent over the girl. Nicolas was feeding her from his wrist.

"She seems to be keeping blood down," Mikhail said grimly. "Thank the gods for small blessings."

Manolito shook his head. "I don't know that it will do any good, Mikhail, Her wounds -"

"I have called Francesca and Raven to help. You and Rafael keep an eye out for Dimitri and keep him and the jaguar boy in check. We need to focus on healing the girl right now but I doubt anything will keep them from retaliating against you and your family when this is over." The prince's face was grim.

"Juliette swears she saw a vampire trying to hurt the child."

"And Riordan?"

"He saw only his lfemate being threatened."

"Zacarias cannot have so puny an excuse."

"Zacarias reacts to the smallest threat against any of us. You know that, Mikhail."

"It doesn't excuse this, Manolito."

Manolito remained silent, unable to disagree, but too loyal to his family to voice it.

"When this is over I will see both your brothers, Juliette and Solange. I need to get to the bottom of this. But right now we all need to help Gregori save that girl. If he doesn't there will be hell to pay in more ways than one."

_

* * *

_

Gregori?

_She is alive, Mikhail._

_Thank the gods._

_Too soon for that. There is hell to pay anyway._


	17. Chapter 17

"There you are."

The girl remained where she was sitting on a rock. She didn't seem afraid but the air around them crackled with tension. No, she was not afraid, Rafael thought. But she did not feel she was in the presence of a friend, either. The eyes that took him in were calm but wary.

He knelt by her side. "You shouldn't be here," he said gently. "You're not well yet, and you need more time in the ground."

She gave him a look that spoke volumes. They had risen that night to find the ground broken where she had been laid to heal. The wards around the area had been tampered with --- but from the outside --- like someone had tried to get in to get to her. From inside they were intact, like she had simply slipped through. The entire ranch had been sent out to search, for there really would be hell to pay if Mikhail found out she was gone, and on top of that Dimitri was only being held in check by the fact that his sister could not be moved and lay healing on their property. If she disappeared there was no telling what retribution he would seek.

And Rafael could not bring himself to blame the man.

Rafael didn't know Aleksandra or Dimitri very well, for this time they had spent in Brazil had been the only time he had ever been in close proximity to them. He still remembered the girl from that day they had met, pink-cheeked from her trek, her small face dominated by sparkly blue eyes, grinning at him as his brother Manolito introduced them. A Carpathian with a sense of humor, who seemed completely devoid of the darkness that stained the rest of them, whose laughter seemed perpetually below the surface, and whose smile had the power of a small sun. He had not forgotten that meeting because the smile she had given him by way of greeting had sent colors and emotions flaring in waves through him --- something that had not happened since he had recognized Colby as his lifemate. The girl had a light that you could not so much see as feel. _Sunshine and rainbows, _Julian had called her. He had it exactly right. But if she could temporarily stir colors and emotions in him, a mated Carpathian, what could she do to those yet unmated? The possibilities were a bit frightening and he had a suspicion that that was one of the reasons Dimitri had kept her secret for so long. Only one other person in history had ever been able to rouse emotion and color in Carpathians not their lifemates and that had been the legendary Ivory Malinov, who had been revered by all. Rafael couldn't help thinking that had the circumstances not been so unfortunate, this girl would be just as capable of inspiring reverence as she was now inspiring anger and revulsion and, yes, fear. Fear because she had abilities noone could fathom, was making things happen that had never happened before. They had had gifted youngsters pop up from time to time in the past, all of them precocious and potent. But the most disturbing thing about this girl was not that she had power in droves at an age when she had no business having any at all yet. It was that she was breaking all the rules. Nevertheless, he sensed no evil in her. Right now he couldn't even sense her powers. At that very moment she just seemed like an exhausted human teenager who had just been very sick and was in need of a hot meal, a bed and a good deal of motherly fussing. Sadly she wasn't going to get any of that. Her wounds were not completely healed yet. The one on her neck looked particularly raw and painful --- it was where Zacarias had sunk his teeth in an attempt to rip out her throat. Had Gregori not already been there when it happened she would have died for sure. As it was her injuries had been extravagant and even five weeks in the ground had not completely healed her yet. Had she been any less ill, however, any less tired, he was sure he would have sensed anger, at least. And with good reason.

"Aleksandra," he said quietly. "I speak for my entire family when I say I am so very sorry for what happened. That must sound insanely lame to you after what you have been through, but…"

"Forget it," the girl cut in, turning away. "It was my fault."

Rafael shook his head "How could it possibly be your fault?"

It was a moment before she replied. Then she turned her blue eyes on him, eyes too old for the handful of years she had been alive. No sunshine or rainbows there now. "My fault," she replied softly."For accepting an invitation to a place where I should have known I wouldn't be welcome. My fault. For letting my guard down around people who have shown open contempt towards me. My fault. I set myself up for this big time."

"It was a misunderstanding."

The girl shook her head with quiet conviction. "No misunderstanding. You can't be very sensitive if you missed that surge of power pushing them on."

_Them._ Solange, Juliette, Riordan, Zacarias,. Attacking her en masse. He himself had almost joined in the fray.

"An outside force started this?" Rafael was instantly alert. Very little about the attack had made sense to him and this would absolve his brothers…..

A smile curled her lip but did not touch her eyes. "Started? Oh, no. That particular honor goes to Solange. Your sister-in-law and your brothers joined of their own free will. The push didn't come till well into the fight. --- if you could call it a fight. Make no mistake, your family started it themselves. The push was just --- encouragement." she added meaningfully.

"Who?"

Aleksandra smirked again. "How stupid do you think I am? You think I'm going to give you an excuse for more questions? How can I know what I know? How can I do what I do? It was magick. That's all I'm going to tell you. Go back to where it happened. Magick always leaves a smell. Follow your nose and you'll have your answer."

"Lara? She's the only one with mage blood…"

"Not the woman," she cut in before she could stop herself . "Or not just the woman."

Like a dog with a bone, Rafael refused to let go of the subject. This was too important. "She was a conduit ? Someone else was working through her?"

"At the risk of sounding like a broken record, how stupid do you think I am? Figure it out for yourself if you're curious enough."

"If this was more than just a huge misunderstanding, I will be more than curious."

The girl's only reply was a mirthless smile.

Rafael thought a moment. If she was right the implications were staggering. If she was right then what a pity that circumstances had turned out the way they had. When he had first heard what she had done for Dimitri two years before his first emotion had been envy. Envy that he had a sister willing to go to such lengths for him. When he had first met her he remembered wishing she had been _their _sister, theirs to fuss over and spoil rotten. He --- _they_--- would have all loved a sister so full of light and life, who could fight with skill and use her powers with such ease and intelligence. He found himself truly envying Dimitri her kinship and loyalty. As Aleksandra wiped wearily at her brow he was suddenly reminded of just how ill she had been. "Come back with me to the ranch and we will get to the bottom of this," he said gently to her. "I promise I will protect you."

"My sister needs nothing from the likes of you, de la Cruz."

Dimitri's voice cut through the darkness like a shard of ice. Rafael turned and suddenly Dimitri was there, tall, imposing, wearing his warrior reputation like a cloak. He put himself directly between his sister and Rafael.

"There is no need to shield her," Rafael said quietly. "Your sister is in no danger from me."

"Nor will she ever be." Dimitri's voice was calm but the rage was there, no less frightening for being cold. "None of your family will ever come near her again."

"I understand your anger, Dimitri. But we are at a crucial point now and you know it. Your sister has powers…"

"My sister's powers are none of your business."

"This situation may mean danger to everyone. The entire Carpathian race depends on all of us cooperating."

"The entire Carpathian race will have to do with two less cooperative idiots."

Rafael cringed at the implications of his words. Dimitri was a fine warrior and an honorable man. He had nearly turned vampire for being so honorable and trying to do right by his lifemate. Noone could deny that. Losing him would be a tremendous blow. "Dimitri, don't," he said softly. "Do not distance yourself from us. Now more than ever we all need to work together."

"Just like your family worked together and nearly killed my sister?"

"It was a misunderstanding. An unfortunate one. It seems that the situation is more complicated than we thought. There may be someone after her and you will need help protecting her."

"Neither you nor Zacarias nor any of your brothers nor any of your so called family will ever _ever _have anything to do with Aleksandra again. They so much as think about her and I will be upon them like their worst nightmare. And I will not just kill. Death is too good for the people who did this to her."

"The prince will…"

"The prince can go walk into the dawn. Along with all his affiliates."

So he was angry at the way Mikhail had handled the situation. Rafael shook his head. "Dimitri, let us talk about this. We cannot afford to lose a warrior of your caliber, we cannot afford to lose control of your area. Surely we can find a way to work this out."

"Work it out yourselves. We are allies no longer."


	18. Chapter 18

_Thank you for the nice reviews! I thought the last chapter was less of a cliffhanger but judging from your reactions I guess not. Let's see how this one goes._

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dimitri landed gently on the ground. He stood unmoving for a moment, reluctant to release his sister from the tight embrace. She was tired and weak and only half- healed but she was alive and had called to him. There were so many things to ask her, so many things to clear up, not the least of which was her severing her own lifebond, but those seemed unimportant in relation to her being alive. Funny how disaster brought things into perspective --- it certainly made sure one got one's priorities in order. The only reason he had not yet sought revenge for what had happened was that Shura's survival and well-being came first. Justice could come later.

The past five weeks had been hell on earth --- not even the agony of having a lifemate who refused to be claimed had matched it. He hadn't realized how emotionally dependent he was on his two charges, how bleak his life without them. Shura in the ground, hopefully healing after narrowly missing death, Stas off somewhere trying to work off his anger and fear in whatever way he could. The one distraction that had offered itself he had grabbed at. He wasn't sure how Shura was going to take it, however.

She lifted her head, almost as if she had heard his thoughts. She met his eyes but only for a moment and would have turned away but he cupped her cheek gently. "You feel all right?"

The girl shook her head. Admitting she was feeling poorly was uncharacteristic of her and this troubled Dimitri, but it was the look in her eyes that troubled him the most. This was the first time he had sensed darkness in her --- he had never seen his younger sister's eyes so bleak, so devoid of anything resembling joy. Was this how _she _had felt when _he_ had been succumbing to the darkness? It was truly terrifying. Forcing his anxiety aside, he led her inside the house where it was warm, but she suddenly stopped at the threshold.

"What is wrong?"

Shura frowned, turning her head from side to side, not looking , but…… feeling.

"Shura?"

"What have you been doing? " she asked him suddenly, a frown coming to her tired face. "What's been happening around here?"

"Hello, Aleksandra, I'm glad you're all right."

She turned towards the voice. Mary Ann, Manolito de la Cruz's lifemate stood in the small living room.

"What are you doing here?"

"Mary Ann has been working with me," her brother replied.

"Working? On what?" She turned again, as if listening. "There is someone else here." Her eyes widened in recognition of the presence in the back room and she turned to her brother.

"We have been working with Skyler," he confirmed.

"We didn't know you would be coming home today or we wouldn't have come," Mary Ann said. "We'll come back another time, Dimitri."

"Thank you, Mary Ann."

"Wait." said Shura." What is this all about?"

"Mary Ann is a counselor and she is helping Skyler."

"And they are here because?"

Dimitri opened his mouth to speak but Mary Ann answered for him. "Dimitri was part of Skyler's life, Aleksandra," she said to the girl. "She needs to come to terms with everything and everyone who was part of her past. Dimitri agreed to work with us."

Shura's eyes narrowed. "You have it all wrong. My brother was never part of her past. That was the problem."

"They were lifemates," she said quietly. " A lifebond is not something one takes lightly. Skyler needs to be able to understand it."

"There is no more life bond, Mary Ann."

"I have my own theories about that."

Shura's fine dark brows lifted. "Oh do you? I would love to hear them."

"This is really about the two of them but since your brother expressed concern from the beginning about how you would react to this, then I will tell you that I am helping the two of them explore what they have."

"What they have?" Aleksandra looked incredulous. "They have nothing. Less than nothing ! They never did. That was the problem."

"They need to be able to look back and see that it was a beautiful thing."

"Beautiful?" Aleksandra's expression was dumbfounded. "Are you _kidding_ me? You have no clue what you are talking about !

Not once, Mary Ann --- _not once _did the awareness of this bond bring my brother a _good_ feeling, a _happy_ thought. _Not once! _

Do you know what it was like to live with that sort of darkness in your own home? In your own brother? In your own mind? To wake up everyday and wonder if that was the day? If that was the day that he would go over the edge? If that was the day I would have to take my own brother's head? Do you know? And do you know what it was like to feel him pining for her? To feel him hope and hope and hope every fucking day that that would be the day she would accept him? The day she would come to him? Do you know? _No, you do not._

So do not give me your psycho-analyst bullshit. Skyler has brought him nothing but pain and suffering and I will be damned if I let her do it all over again. So you will take her away and never bring her back. You will take her away now --- _right now! -_-- or I will not be responsible for what happens next. I assure you I am in no mood to control myself. And believe me you will not like me when I'm angry."

Mary Ann was experienced enough to sense the depths of the girl's distress, was sensitive enough to recognize true impending danger. Weak as she had seemed when she had arrived, the girl now fairly crackled with power. Shivered with it. Lights were flickering, furniture shook. Aleksandra's rage had become a palpable thing and it was unlikely that in her half-healed state she would waste any energy trying to see reason. Mary Ann saw her lower her head like one fighting for control and she knew that if she didn't do as she was told there was a very real danger that this would end in tragedy.

"We're going," Mary Ann said to her, struggling to stay calm. She had expected opposition but had not anticipated this show of power. "We'll go, Aleksandra."

She glanced over at Dimitri, who had been observing the scene with an unnatural calm. "I apologize, Mary Ann," he said to her before she disappeared and Skyler's presence with her. Then to his sister: "Are you through with your tantrum yet?"

Aleksandra whirled on him. "Goddamn you Dimitri ! " she spat. "You will not take that little sister tone with me. Not now ! Two years --- _two years _I watched you suffer because of her."

_And I suffered right along with you,_ she said in her mind but could not bring herself to say out loud. This was not about her.

Suddenly Dimitri was there beside her, taking her face in his hands. "Shura look at me. Shura! " He spoke gently but firmly. "I know you only want to protect me. I love you for that. But it was my choice to do this."

"It was your idea to get back together with her?" His sister didn't only sound incredulous, she sounded thoroughly disgusted. This was not going well.

"I never said that." Dimitri's voice was calm and reasonable but to Shura this seemed way too much like a pacification tactic. "She needs to heal and I want to help her. What she did --- what she did not do, it weighs heavily on her."

"I'm supposed to care?" She snapped before she could help it.

"I understand if you do not. She forced you into making a decision no child should ever have to make. And you have only ever had my welfare in mind and noone else's." He smiled a little wryly. "Not even your own. But Skyler needs my help. Her childhood---"

Shura held up her hand to cut him off. "_Yes_," she said in a long-suffering voice, shutting her eyes." I remember her childhood. I remember it in 3D with Dolby surround sound. Plus reruns." Something flashed in her eyes that Dimitri did not understand and he heard her mutter "And of course she has the exclusive on traumatic childhoods, doesn't she?"

"She is not strong like you."

A sneer twisted Shura's face. "What did she do, cry? She did, didn't she?"

"I already told you. She is not strong like you."

His sister made an impatient noise. "Not using tears was a choice, Dimitri, not a genetic predisposition. I _chose _never to use tears on you. You were such a sucker for them that the only time I ever did use them to get what I wanted I felt mean."

"Tears can be honest sometimes, Shura."

The girl rolled her eyes feelingly.

He turned her to face him again and as she lifted her eyes he saw the unspoken question there. "Yes, _malinkaya_," he said to her, very softly, very gently. "I will see her again. I will continue to help her. That may involve her coming here sometimes and though I understand your anger towards her you will just need to deal with that. I love you but you need to accept my decision. I am helping her, Shura. _That is all I'm doing._"

Shura seemed to sag. She lowered her head, put her hands on her knees, her thin body doubling over like she no longer even had the energy to stay upright. Dimitri tried to hug her. "We will figure this out. I promise…"

"No," she said, pushing him away_. "No_. Your aura's in shreds already. Your guilt is back in full swing. The energy in here is unbearable. I cannot_ … I will not… _watch you destroy your life all over again._"_

She turned to leave but Dimitri caught her arm. "Where do you think you're going? "

"Anywhere but here."

"You are not going anywhere. You haven't even healed yet."

"You think I'm going to heal faster here? With your guilt climbing the walls? " She put her hands over her ears and her face twisted. "Bloody hell, you feel almost worse than you did before."

Dismayed, Dimitri put up shields. He had always known his connection to his sister was strong, what he had not realized was just how powerful it was. For her to have relived Skyler's past with him, for her to feel his guilt…....he had not known, by the gods, he had had no clue.

He took her gently by the shoulders. "Shura, you are tired and upset. You need to feed and sleep. I will…"

She shoved away his hands. "I'm not feeding from you. You'll only get louder inside my head. I'm not feeding from anyone ever again."

"Sleep then. Tomorrow we will figure this out. Calmly."

"There's no calm for you where Skyler is involved,' she said, turning her back on him. "Which means there's no calm for me, either. Hells, it's like pulling teeth."

Thankfully she headed for her room instead of out the door. Despite her anger, he could sense she was hanging on to wakefulness by a thread. She didn't even bother to shut her bedroom door before crawling onto the bed fully clothed and Dimitri watched her draw her knees to her chest, curling into a fetal position and covering her head with her arms before completely letting go of the conscious world.

Many hours later, just before sunrise, he woke her to feed. She was too groggy and sleep-fuddled to protest so she did what she was told but vomited as soon as she had swallowed the first mouthful. It was no act --- she promptly sank back down on the bed and curled into a ball with hands clutched to her spasming stomach, whimpering a little. More than a little troubled, Dimitri sat with her, stroking her hair to soothe her back to sleep. He sighed, truly hoping that on the morrow things would be better.


	19. Chapter 19

Dimitri lifted his head as the newcomers entered the room. Two women - but not the ones he expected. Mary Ann, yes, but the other was the jaguar woman with the child, kin to Manolito's brother. Dimitri did not know her name, could not recall even having heard it mentioned. The infant squirmed in her arms, eager to get away, but the young woman held him fast, shrinking back a little when she realized he was in the room. He heard Mary Ann whisper encouragement and the two women approached him.

"Hello, Dimitri," said Mary Ann . "This is Jasmine. I am sorry to bring her unannounced but she would like to talk to Aleksandra."

"She is not here," he said slowly.

"Will she be back in a while? We can wait."

Dimitri rose slowly. "I do not know when she will be back. She did not say. It could be days." _Or weeks _he said to himself but not out loud. The evening after he had brought her home from Brazil he had risen to find his sister gone. She had taken nothing, left no word, and her mind was shut to him, completely and absolutely shut.

He glanced at the jaguar woman, who seemed to shrink from his gaze. He tilted his head. Such suffering he sensed in this one - she wore her trauma like a coat. Something had happened to her that had affected her very badly for she wore her emotional scars like open wounds.

Seeing Dimitri's reaction, Mary Ann spoke up. "Aleksandra rescued Jasmine's son. Twice. The first was the day she got to the ranch when she found him down a hole. The last time…" Her voice trailed off awkwardly.

Dimitri looked away and the other girl seemed to shrink even further into herself. Lost in thought for a moment, it startled him when the young woman spoke up.

"I… I wanted to thank her," she said, her voice quavering. It wasn't just the situation – something about him simply being there seemed to be causing this distress. Dimitri didn't understand it but he could feel her trying her utmost to summon courage she obviously did not believe she had and he felt a sudden flash of admiration for her. "... and to apologize. I can't undo what happened and if anyone deserved to have it happen to them it was me."

"Noone deserved to have that happen to them," Dimitri cut in shortly. Even Mary Ann looked away. After what had happened she hadn't even expected him to cooperate with Skyler's therapy - after all she, the supposed counselor, was a de la Cruz and Manolito's family was responsible for his sister's too-close brush with death. Dimitri had surprised her by agreeing to help and so far he had been very cooperative - albeit at great cost to him.

"I am so sorry," Jasmine said, blinking back tears.

Mary Ann saw Dimitri's expression soften. "I doubt that you were to blame."

"Gael… he got away again. Solange wanted me to lock him up but I didn't have the heart to and because of that he got away …"

This time Dimitri frowned. "Lock him up?" he said, his voice clearly disapproving. "Babies should not be locked up. They need to explore. Especially jaguar."

Jasmine bit her lip. "That's what Aleksandra told me. But like Solange said, he gets into trouble when he gets away…."

"Aleksandra was right. He will get into even more trouble if you try to lock him up. Take it from me."

The counselor in Mary Ann came to the forefront and she jumped at an opportunity probably only she recognized. "Maybe you can teach Jasmine a few things," she said cautiously. "Give her a few tips on how to raise her boy. She's new to this and you're a pro."

She saw Dimitri sigh and smiled inwardly. This would be a welcome chance to help yet another troubled soul. The sessions with Skyler were excruciating for Dimitri - he might actually welcome the distraction. And who better to teach a new mother to raise a jaguar baby than someone who had raised one himself?

* * *

Some weeks later, Dimitri sat on the rocky overhang outside his home, one that looked over the slope to the creek below. It was cold and clear and in the moonlight he could see for miles. But there was no joy in the night. Not even the canopy of stars above seemed able to inspire or even promise any good feelings.

He sighed. Always so sure of himself, he now doubted his direction, his actions, indeed his very being. He had not felt so alone since the years before his sister had been born. Ah, his sister, the little know-it-all. She had been so very angry about his getting involved with Skyler's therapy. Dimitri had felt that helping Skyler was the right thing to do - he still believed that and nothing would change that. But Aleksandra had been correct about one thing. It was painful, more painful than he had ever expected. He had agreed to help and he now needed to stand by that decision. But it was costing him dearly. In a way, he was actually glad that his sister had left, that she wasn't here to experience this. If their connection was as strong as he had only just realized it to be, it would be agonizing for her as well. She had known. And she had made the decision to leave - so he would not have to.

Skyler's therapy involved her confronting things in her past, agonizing things, things he had not been able to protect her from. Dimitri wasn't certain he saw the sense in forcing the girl to relive such horrific memories but Mary Ann believed it would help her work through her trauma. She then tried to help Skyler deal with her reaction to her memories by teaching her to acknowledge that it was in the past and would remain in the past, to relax, to be able to push it aside. She would then have Dimitri do simple things like speak to Skyler or touch her hand. It had been weeks but it was still difficult and when she did let him touch her after one of the regressions, it was through sheer force of will, not through any desire for contact, certainly not because she felt comfort at it. That weighed on Dimitri the most.

Even though Skyler seemed to like his company outside of the regression sessions, he felt inadequate, awkward. Mary Ann kept telling him that it would pass, that she was slowly but surely learning to cope and reduce her negative feelings. That the behavior she was training Skyler into would become more natural as time went by, until it truly became part of who Skyler was. Having lived so many centuries, one would have thought that days, even weeks, would mean little to him. But Skyler's memories were so agonizing, watching her go through them was so excruciatingly painful, that a single session seemed to stretch forever. It hurt that he could not seem to comfort her when she most needed itand he sincerely hoped that what Mary Ann so strongly believed would happen would happen soon. Skyler, especially, needed it to happen soon.

The distraction of having the jaguar child around between sessions was actually turning out to be a welcome one. He had first almost regretted agreeing to help Jasmine as well - he didn't think he could take responsibility for another tormented soul. But he had come to realize that his perspective was different with Jasmine – he was not coming in with the baggage of having been a lifemate who had been found wanting. He merely had to coach her on how to handle a tiny curious jaguar baby with a surfeit of playful energy - much like Stas had been as a child. As soon as she got over her wariness, Jasmine was eager to listen and learn, and he felt immense satisfaction at seeing her deal with her child with greater and greater confidence. She was going to need that confidence as the child grew for if his experience with Stas was any precedent, she was going to need every bit of it, plus a will of absolute iron, in the years to come.

He turned as a familiar presence made itself known behind him. He welcomed the intrusion for it would take him from melancholy thoughts, but the moment he met his friend's eyes a ball of dread formed in the pit of his stomach.

"What is it, Julian?"

"We need to talk."


	20. Chapter 20

"Old friend," Julian breathed, "It seems the way of a parent has not been easy for you. I understand now why you distanced yourself, why you stayed in Russia…"

"Why I pretended I was so used to being alone that I found it difficult to even be around my own kind?"

Julian smiled a little. "That was not entirely a lie was it?"

"No," he admitted. "I did not know how everyone else would react to my sister. What she is like. What she can do. I know now that it was the right decision."

Julian did not reply but he agreed silently. But there were things that Dimitri was leaving out.

"Why are you really here, Julian?" Dimitri said suddenly, pointedly, and then glanced around the small table. "Why are all of you here?"

The tall men surrounding him exchanged glances. At last Gregori spoke. "Things have come to our attention, Dimitri," he said, his silver eyes darkened to grey. "Bothersome things. We think your sister may be in danger." The Carpathian healer studied their host's reaction and his brows lifted a little. "This is not news to you."

Dimitri remained silent.

Rafael de la Cruz spoke up. "When we spoke - I - didn't get a chance to tell you that the wards to your sister's resting place had been tampered with."

"Obviously. I already guessed she had gotten away from you without your knowing."

"I mean from the outside, Dimitri. Someone had tried to get in."

He sensed the flash of fear but Dimitri's face remained impassive. "Apparently they did not succeed."

"No. But it is to be taken as warning."

"Is it?"

"Let us help you. You and your sister both."

"Why? Why would you want to help? What are we to you? What would you have to gain?"

"You are Carpathian. The same as us."

"And?"

"Our numbers are too few. We need to stick together. Work for the good of the whole."

"I used to believe that. And my sister has been paying the price for it her whole life."

"Your sister is special. You know that already."

"Yes. So special your brothers and their concubines tried to take her life."

Gregori spoke up before any tempers could flare. "We've been trying to get to the bottom of that, Dimitri. The attack - or at least the severity of it - truly made no sense."

"It made perfect sense to me. The jaguar girl had her hackles up from the moment she laid eyes on Aleksandra. The rest just followed from that."

"She was reacting to the presence of the jaguar boy."

"Do you think I am a moron? She first attacked Aleksandra in the jungle when she was alone."

"Probably territorial behavior," Rafael put in.

"Aleksandra told me they were too far from her home for it to be that. Does it truly pain you to admit that this member of your family is simply nasty?"

"She's not exactly family," Manolito said, earning him a glare from his brother. "And Solange has had her problems."

"And that is an excuse, is it?"

"No, it is not. But Solange - Solange is many things but she is not evil."

"And my sister is?"

"That's not what we are saying, Dimitri," Rafael put in.

"Then what are you saying, Rafael?"

"Aleksandra is different - I do not believe we have to tell you that. She felt something spur my brothers on during the fight."

"Fight? Is that what you call what happened - a fight? Next you will be saying it was fair."

"Hear him out, Dimitri. " Gregori put in gently. "This could be important."

Rafael continued. "She said she felt a _push _of energy. Magick to be specific."

"Then that means your family is still to blame. The only person present with mage blood was your brother's lifemate."

Rafael and Manolito exchanged glances. "That may not be true."

"Who then?"

This time Gregori spoke up. "Aleksandra is not your full sister, is she?"

"No"

"What do you know of her father?"

Dimitri fell silent for a moment. "Not much. My mother would not speak of him."

"Did you know your sister was dragonseeker?"

He nodded slowly.

"It is strong enough in her so Natalya recognized it from simply walking into the chamber where she had lain."

"Where are you going with this Gregori? What does it matter if she is dragonseeker?"

"It makes her kin to Razvan. And therefore to Xavier."

Dimitri's eyes flashed. "So now she is a spy belonging to our worst enemy?"

"What do you know of the years when she disappeared, Dimitri?"

"Nothing. Her memory is a blank."

"Are you sure?"

"You healed her – you have been in her mind. What did you see?"

"Nothing," Gregori admitted. "That period is a void. But in her mind her life is divided into two parts. Before that void and after."

"You suspect her memories were taken?"

"That is a possibility." He saw the warrior hesitate and his voice grew quiet. "I cannot stress to you how important it is that we find out, Dimitri. We have reason to believe that your sister has been tracked for a very long time by forces not Carpathian." Dimitri fell silent for a moment and then Gregori pressed on. "For her own protection, and ours, we need to find out. We are asking your permission to question her."

Dimitri returned the healer's gaze. "My permission or my help?," he said quietly. "Do you even know where to find her?"

"No. But she's in danger wherever she is. We wouldn't be here to warn you if we truly didn't believe that."

Dimitri raked his hands through his hair. "But why this interest in my sister? Yes, she is gifted but we have had many gifted children through the years…"

This time Rafael was the one who answered. "She has reminded us of one in particular."

"Who?"

The two delaCruz brothers exchanged glances once more. Then Manolito spoke up. "Ivory," he replied. "I didn't see it until Rafael pointed it out but the resemblance is now very clear to me. Ivory was as a sister to us. Like your sister she was precocious and very very smart. Like your sister she loved to laugh and she could make other people laugh as well, even males who had lost their emotions. Aleksandra managed to rouse Zacarias to anger. Do you know how unbelievable that is? She is the only other person I have ever known besides Ivory who can spark colors and feeling in Carpathians who are not her lifemates. That is part of the reason you kept her sheltered isn't it?"

"And what if it was?" Dimitri snapped. "This last little trip proved I was right to keep her away from the lot of you!"

"That's not all," Rafael put in quietly. "Even physically there is a resemblance. I don't know why we didn't notice it from the start."

Dimitri threw up his hands. "And what of it? What does it matter if Aleksandra resembles this long dead foster sister of yours?"

"Ivory was blood sister to Maksim, who, as you well know, turned vampire and is now allied wth Xavier. He has long plotted our downfall in the most morbid ways possible. Even from the shadowlands he continues to work his evil," Manolito replied gravely. "This means, Dimitri, that not only is your sister dragonseeker, _she could be Malinov."_

* * *

Gregori sat back in his chair, his face white. "By the gods," he whispered hoarsely. The five of them stared at the jaguar boy, summoned by Dimitri to their little meeting. Stanislav huddled in his chair, looking for all the world like a mutinous child despite his long frame. The expression on his face was a cross between trepidation, anger and the horror Gregori was sure was reflected on all their faces. The horror at his own revelations. Only he knew what had happened to Aleksandra those four years she had been missing, for, as it turned out, he had shared them with her.

"This all sounds incredible," Julian said. "I've come across horrific things in my life - but that's almost too sick to be real."

"It's real," Manolito spoke up softly. The expression on his face was indescribable.

"The boy has no reason to lie," Julian put in. "But…"

"That's not how we know it's real," Rafael spoke up. He and his brother exchanged cryptic glances. "We know the boy is speaking the truth because this was one of the morbid schemes we had come up with Maksim and his brothers when we were youngsters."

Dimitri half-rose. "You are responsible for this?" he roared as Julian held him back.

"Of course not!" Manolito replied, his voice hoarse. "But as children the Malinovs and us - we used to joke around about becoming a superior breed of Carpathians. One of the crazy things we came up with was to to multiply our powers by staying in the ground hooked up to a blood supply for a year. Or two."

"Or four," Gregori said grimly. "It seems like the mystery of your sister's four missing years has been solved, Dimitri. And everything points to Maksim being involved."

Dimitri was sitting hunched, his hands pressed to his mouth, his expression one of absolute horror. What Stas had just related had been almost too hideous for his mind to process.

And yet it made near-perfect sense.

As a child, Aleksandra had preferred human food but she did need blood at regular intervals to keep her from sickening. Those first few years this had involved much cajoling and wheedling, even bribery. As she got older it had been less of a struggle as she had resorted to resignedly holding her nose and gulping it down as fast as she could before pulling exaggerated faces. It was also the case with going to ground. She hated it so much that Dimitri had to put her to sleep, often under enthrallment, and go to ground cradling her. He usually woke with empty arms and the ground already broken above him, and his sister above ground wearing a mutinous expression and smelling of soap and seven baths worth of clean water. Sometimes she wouldn't talk to or even look at him for days after.

No wonder if she had spent the four formative years of her life buried alive.

He didn't realize he was shaking until Julian put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "She never said anything," he said hoarsely. "Why did she not say anything?"

"Obviously she was protecting someone," Gregori replied.

"Who?"

At last Stas lifted his head and spoke from where he was huddled in the corner. "You, you blockhead," he said pointedly to Dimitri. "She was protecting you."


	21. Chapter 21

Dimitri raked his hands through his dark hair in agitation. "That makes no sense. What would Shura be protecting me from?"

Stas rolled his eyes feelingly. "From yourself, dunderhead! She didn't think you would pass up the chance to feel guilty over something that wasn't your fault and damned if she wasn't right."

"And how would you have me feel, Stas?," Dimitri said, turning tormented eyes to him. "She was my responsibility. I didn't protect her well enough and she was taken from me. Now I hear that because of my shortcomings, my sister spent the first four years of her life buried alive as some sick experiment. How would you have me feel?"

Stas looked away. "And now you know why she never told you," he said softly. "You love your guilt too much."

"Stas…..."

"What, you're going to deny it?" The boy turned to him, angry now. "You're going to tell me Shura and I were wrong to keep it from you? You love to feel guilty even over things that you can't help! Look at how you reacted to that girl you were mated to! Why do you think she didn't want you to get involved with Skyler again?"

"I know," Dimitri whispered. "_Now _I know."

After a moment Gregori spoke up. "How did she manage to keep the memories from Dimitri for so long? They've shared blood and know each other's minds - I was in her mind when I healed her and I saw nothing of those four years."

The boy shrugged. "Shura just does things."

"She shouldn't be able to …."

"You keep measuring her against you!" Stas cut in impatiently. "She's not like you! She's not like anybody."

Gregori and the two delaCruz brothers exchanged glances. The healer sighed. "I think we've established that. Even the way she uses her powers isn't really - well - Carpathian."

Rafael frowned. "How so?"

Gregori turned to Dimitri, whose expression had grown wary. "You need to believe that we are on your side, Dimitri. But we need to figure your sister out, to know exactly what we're dealing with here. I'm sure it is not news to you that she is capable of using outside sources of power."

Dimitri did not bother to deny it.

"In fact," Gregori continued slowly "everything she does, everything she is able to do, seems to stem from that. In essence that is her only real power - because she isn't able to do other things that Carpathians can do - like regulate her body temperature. Even her healing process is slow, much slower than ours. But this ability to draw energy, to manipulate it, translates into so many possibilities that she gives the illusion of being all powerful - when truth is she really has only that one power."

Dimitri nodded.

Gregori drew a long breath. "Let us take a step back. Bear with me as I talk this out, no matter how crazy it sounds. We know that Aleksandra's mother- _your _mother - refused to talk about her pregnancy, possibly meaning she was impregnated against her will. Aleksandra is Carpathian from the mother's side of the family. Her father is unknown, but we do know she is dragonseeker, at least in part, and as she seems to walk in daylight with no trouble she must be part human."

Manolito spoke up. "We know that Razvan has half human offspring. That might explain that. But what do you think of this suspicion of ours that she is Malinov?"

"The resemblance could be a coincidence. But if it's not, the implication is that Maxim has found a way to join forces with Xavier."

"This is getting way complicated - far-fetched,even," Julian said. "So Aleksandra's father was possibly Razvan's…. grandson? And also Maxim's… something? Son? Grandson? She carries both their bloodlines?"

"Do you have a better explanation?"

Julian shrugged a little. "I'm no scientist but I'm thinking that putting all that together in a test tube might have been easier than all the convoluted matchmaking that combination would have required."

The others exchanged glances. "You're right," Gregori said. "Crazy as it still is, that's actually more plausible."

"It still means a conspiracy, however." Rafael said.

Julian shrugged a little. "That conspiracy theory might also mean that the attack on Dimitri's mother wasn't random. The vampire that killed her wasn't after her - he was after the child she was carrying."

Gregori wiped his hands across his face. "We need to find her."

Stas spoke up from the corner. "Why? Why do you need to find her? Why this need to figure her out?"

"Because if this situation is what we think it is, she could be in deep trouble. You both could. Maxim's arms reach into this world and Xavier is in a class all his own in evildoing. If she is not already corrupted, then it will be their aim to do so."

"And me? Don't you wonder if I'm corrupted?"

"Are you?," Gregori asked pointedly.

The boy's lip curled in derision. "Figure it out for yourself."

"I intend to. But we need both of you to do that. Are you not curious, Stanislav? This may solve the mystery of you origins, as well."

"I'm not interested in my past, only my future."

"This affects both your futures. Do you know where Aleksandra is?"

"Even if I did, you haven't given me a good enough reason to tell you."

Gregori's face grew dark as he neared the end of his patience. "Well how about this, little boy? If Maxim and Xavier have joined forces and you and Aleksandra are products of that alliance - then it will mean that the enemy has working prototypes of a jaguar with Carpathian mind powers, plus a Carpathian who can walk in daylight and is able to tap into energy sources not her own. Now that she is of age and assumedly coming into her powers they will want her back, just as they will want you back. Based on what you have told us about Aleksandra and yourself, you and her are theoretically the blueprints of what they believe to be super entities of Carpathian and jaguar. The first of many to come. Can you bear the thought of an entire generation of children spending their formative years caged or buried alive? Subjects of experiments? Bred to evil?"

Stas fell silent.

* * *

Aleksandra walked around in silence, taking in the patterns of rock and undergrowth, bush and hill, trying to superimpose them on her own memories. A few things had changed - a shrub where a tree had once been, bare ground where it used to be bush, but it was the same place, she was sure of it. She was on the right track.

She pushed on. The thing about walking was that it cleared her head - and filled it at the same time. Images of this path flashed through her mind's eye - this tree, that patch of grass, the rockscape of boulders to one side- like a film playing in reverse. The last time she had been here she had been going not coming.

The last time she had been here she had been the hunted, not the hunter.

The sun had set and the horizon was the color of blood. It was a picture both beautiful and just slightly grotesque. Just like her life, she thought. Or, no, actually her life was the other way around, grotesque, with just a little bit of pretty around the edges. She kept going, despite the fact that she was getting winded. She felt the other presence again, just as she crested a small hill, and she sighed. This was getting tiresome. She stopped, took a steeling breath and called out. "For crying out loud, show yourself already. This tailing business is getting really old."

There was a moment of silence when it seemed even the wind held its breath. Then the air felt as if it expanded behind her and Aleksandra turned and faced exactly the person she expected.

"What," she said in a long-suffering voice, "do you want?"

Nicolas de la Cruz looked down at her from his imposing height, his dark eyes glittering in the fading light. "You need to stop this nonsense," he said in a tone that brooked no contention.

Aleksandra wasn't impressed, either by his tone of voice or the fact that she had to look up at him to speak. "And since when do you get a say in what I do?"

"Since you took leave of your senses."

"Even if I did, it's none of your business."

"It is my business. You are my lifemate."

Aleksandra's eyes narrowed. "A temporary technicality."

"That's what you said the last time."

"Well I'm not the one who was stupid enough to initiate a blood exchange ! That's probably what fused the bond I had already cut ! "

"You were dying! "

"Then you should have let me die," she said with a shrug. "Simpler for everyone, don't you think?"

Nicolas gazed at her for a moment. "That was never an option. Do not even think it." His hand lifted to her cheek but she dodged it neatly and took a step back.

"Go home, Nicolas." She spoke quietly now, seriously. "I'm in no shape right now to be trying to sever our bond again but I promise I will do it. "

"You're in no shape to be doing anything!" he frowned. "You left the ground half-healed and you're in no better shape now than you were when you left Brazil. Don't bother to lie, because I can tell - we're bonded, remember ?"

"Not completely." It was as much a challenge as a statement.

Nicolas raked his hand through his hair. "You have been leading me a merry chase. I don't know how you manage to cut off the connection from time to time but I'm tired of it, Aleksandra. It has taken me weeks to find your trail."

"This is not about you, you egomaniac! "

"What the hell have you been doing anyway? This is not a safe place to be! "

"It's where I need to be right now."

"What? Why?"

Aleksandra gave him a steady look. "Because," she said. "I am going to find myself."


	22. Chapter 22

"Come back here ! This place is not safe !"

"And where is a safe place, Nicolas?" Aleksandra said, turning back to him. "Your home in Brazil? Surrounded by family and trusted friends and safeguards ? Where I almost died?"

Nicolas froze in his tracks and fell silent.

"Yes, I thought that would shut you up," she murmured, gazing at him for a moment. Then she whirled on her heel and kept going. "Go home. The bond will be gone soon enough."

"You'll be dead soon enough!"

"If I don't die I'll cut the bond again. If I do you're free anyway. The bond's nowhere near strong enough to compel you to follow me into the afterlife. It's a win-win situation for you so what are you complaining about?"

Nicolas, for the life of him, could not come up with an answer.

* * *

Dimitri was finding it really difficult to concentrate on the session. Mary Ann was again putting Skyler through one of her painful regressions but instead of being caught up in it as he always was he found his mind wandering. After their third unsuccessful try at getting Skyler to accept his comfort - even if only in her mind - he was ready to give up. The sudden slam of the door being impatiently thrown open was actually a welcome distraction. Stas' lanky form filled the door frame.

Mary Ann looked up, furious at the interruption. Skyler, still in the middle of the regression, was in a delicate state. "Don't you know how to knock?," she snapped at the newcomer.

"He lives here, he does not need to knock," Dimitri said at once, a little more sharply than he intended. He rose. "I am sorry, Mary Ann, but I need to speak with Stas. You will need to finish up by yourself today."

Mary Ann sighed and nodded.

* * *

"She's not there," Stas was saying to him even before they were out of the house. "She was, but she's not there anymore."

"Master Su does not know where she is?," Dimitri asked as they walked out. They almost ran into a pretty young woman carrying a child as they exited. She gasped as she caught sight of Stas and stepped back.

Dimitri's hand shot out to steady her. "Do not be frightened, Jasmine," he said, realizing at once what she was thinking. "Yes, Stas is jaguar, but he would never hurt you or your baby." The young woman gulped and nodded with visible difficulty, pressing unconsciously closer to him.

Stas took in the exchange for a moment, his eyes narrowing a little. Dimitri's posture was protective and the young woman certainly looked like she wanted that protection. His interest didn't last however, and he put his impatience into the look he sent Dimitri, who murmured something reassuring to Jasmine and then took his arm to lead him outside. The moon was full that night and everything around them was almost as clear as in daylight.

"I am sorry about that, Stas," Dimitri said when they were out of earshot. "You should not have to go through that in your own home."

The boy shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he said, though his eyes told Dimitri otherwise. Since the fracaso in Brazil, he had been a good deal quieter, more introverted. Introverted had not been a word he would ever have applied to Stas before. But his first real brush with hostility towards male jaguars had affected him deeply and this little incident could only have reminded him of that.

"It does matter," Dimitri sighed. "I am sorry for bringing people here who make you feel uncomfortable - this is your home and it should not be a place where you are ever ill at ease. And the same goes for Shura. We need to find her, Stas. Does Master Su truly not know where she is?"

"You know Shura - she would never say where she was going if she didn't want to be found. And the master would never pry." He took a steeling breath. "If it's true that there are …. people… after her, and she's found out about it… you know what that means, don't you?"

Dimitri nodded grimly. "She will do exactly what she was taught to do," he murmured. "She will become the hunter instead of the hunted."

* * *

Nicolas rose to find Aleksandra gone. Not that it should surprise him. The three days that they had been together - no, more accurately put, the three days that he had been forcing his company on her- he had never once risen to find her waiting patiently for him. Did he actually expect it? The answer was no, of course. He couldn't for the life of him understand why it annoyed him so much.

He would probably be able to find her. This close to her the pull of the bond was discernible through the link forged by the blood exchange. She didn't bother to try to hide from him, she treated him like one would some pesky fly you would soon be rid of just as soon as you found a big enough fly swatter. Only he would be able to track her, though, and only through the bond, weak though it was. He had realized this when he had tried to pick up her trail weeks before. It was next to impossible because there was no physical trail - she was like a ghost, leaving nothing in her wake. It was nothing short of uncanny. Had they taught her this in the lamasery as well?

He had also uncovered several disturbing things about his … temporary… lifemate in the short time they had been together. At times she acted more human than Carpathian, and this was probably due to the fact that her brother had often left her and the jaguar boy in the care of humans when his duties as hunter took him where he could not care for them. A lamasery in the cold mountains had apparently been a second home for them, a group of monks secondary parents. From what Aleksandra had told him and from what he could gather from her thoughts, she had learned the Carpathian manner of combat with the use of her powers from her brother, but from the monks she had learned a spectacularly efficient _human_ way of fighting without using a single special power. He had found this out two nights ago having crossed paths with a hunting party of four vampires. With only a sword and her own physical agility she had disposed of three of them before he had even reached her. She hadn't even shapeshifted once. He had of course found out later that she couldn't ('_It's always the first power to go when I haven't taken blood'_). But the discovery that she hadn't even needed to was a profound one.

She still wouldn't tell him where she was going and that was the one thing he could not pull out of her mind. This quest to "find herself" was getting on his nerves. He knew she was puttering around in the daytime when he could not follow her - the gods only knew what kind of mischief she was getting into.

After about an hour of searching, he picked up her presence just ahead. A sudden sense of danger lifted the fine hairs on his arms. He swore. A fog was descending, making it difficult to see - he began to move faster in Aleksandra's direction. When at last he found her she was standing behind a tree, looking into a little clearing. Her posture was one of silent observation and he frowned. Had she at last found what she had been looking for?

She seemed to have sensed him for she turned as he approached and lifted a finger to her lips. _Stop, _she said in his mind_. Don't move. They'll smell you._

Smell him? What in hell, thought Nicolas and then had to bring his hand to his mouth to stop a gasp when he caught sight of what she had been looking at. Aleksandra had found something all right.

She had found a nest.


	23. Chapter 23

Nicolas fought every instinct he had - every instinct of male, of Carpathian, of lifemate - fought hard to simply keep still. Full dark had descended and Aleksandra stood not ten feet from him. And less than ten feet from her in a small clearing lit only by the emerging moon, earth was moving, breaking.

_Don't move, don't make a sound._

For the first time in a long, long while, Nicolas felt true fear. Gooseflesh rippled on his arms, his mouth actually went dry, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose like hackles. Multiple limbs were emerging from the dirt in varying order - an arm erupting here, a foot leading there, a head breaking ground further back. His breath began to come in short gasps. Many, so many of them, too many. Each figure emerged from the ground whole, fully upright, devoid of glamour or illusion, in its most natural form.

Fully vampire.

There had to be at least fifty of them. In the dim mooonlight personal features were not clear, but it was clear enough that the figures with their fully extended fangs were all male, all powerfully built, each obviously having been in their physical prime upon turning. Like his brothers, Nicolas was a powerful warrior, among the best the Carpathians had ever seen, but he could take no comfort in that. He had never seen this many vampires in one place at one time, not ever in his very long life and there was no way he could singlehandedly take on all of them. And he had the girl to think of - no not just a girl but his lifemate - or at least his mate of the moment, disturbing as that may have sounded. He felt terror for her and the need to protect obliterated all else for these monsters would rip them apart and bathe in their blood.. There was only one realistic option here : to flee.

_Don't shift_, she said in his mind before he had even fully formed the thought. _They'll sense you. _

To his surprise she had used a channel that was not common to the Carpathians - no, she was speaking into his mind on a wavelength that was entirely… _theirs._

_We're downwind right now but they will smell you if you move. There is a mage here. He will sense it if you shift, if you use your powers in any way. Do not, Nicolas._

A mage? With the vampires? Trying very hard to shift his gaze without moving his head, Nicolas watched the group. They milled around, restless, expectant, gathering into a circle like a class waiting for the teacher, a team expecting its coach….

A nest of vampires anticipating the coming of the master.

Terror turned to panic, an emotion Nicolas was not intimate with. For a moment it stripped his mind of every thought, every muscle in his body of the capacity to move. This was another first for him, the first time fear for another had robbed him of reason. But then again he had never been in this situation before - all his life one or the other of his brothers had always had his back, just like he had always had theirs. He had hunted alone from time to time, yes, especially when he had felt close to turning, but he had encountered vampires in twos and threes - never like this. He knew enough about Aleksandra now to know she would hold her own in battle, but two against fifty were odds not even the finest warriors could overcome. They had to run. As his eyes shifted back to the girl, he saw her lift a solitary finger to point behind him and he turned very slowly and saw a hollowed out tree trunk, maybe three long strides from where he was standing. Splintered by lightning, it had been blackened and hollowed by fire and was just big enough to…

He felt rather than saw the master vampire erupt from the earth, hidden from view by his minions who had their backs to Nicolas. Dirt spewed into the air and spread a stench that was unmistakable and a palpable swell of evil that seemed to actually move the air. Acting instinctively, Nicolas took the moment of distraction to grab the girl and pull her into the trunk's cavity with him. It was deep enough to hide him from view if he sat down, but so narrow that the only way they would both fit was to hold her against him on his lap, her bent knees on either side of him. The moonlight above reflected off of Aleksandra's shiny dark hair, peeking just over the lip of the hollow, and he moved his hand to her neck to draw her head against his shoulder, hopefully concealing it from view. She was quiet and still against him, making no movement, voicing no objection.

He supposed that he had expected her to object despite the situation. for up until now she had kept him at a very rigid arm's length. And for good reason, for the bond pulled and tugged ever more persuasively the more time they spent together. Physical proximity made it infinitely worse, for the urge to touch her was a compulsion he could not afford to give in to. He knew she felt it as well, but she was dealing with it far better than he was - she actually had the strength to turn her back on him every time he came close, and she was wise enough to never look him in the face when speaking to him. She was practicing self-preservation, which she attempted to disguise by being obnoxious. Well there was no distancing herself from him now. The fates - and her own damned stubbornness- had literally forced them into a position that could only be described as intimate, both of them packed into this tight little space, welded together from shoulder to hip.

The sound of footfalls and a great deal of crashing through the undergrowth told him that the vampires were now on the move. They obviously did not expect detection - or did not fear it, for there was no effort to be quiet, and he heard words spoken openly in a guttural language that Nicolas, surprisingly, was not familiar with. The noise they made blended with the sound of other, smaller creatures scurrying off, taking flight, doing anything to get out of their way. Several times they bumped the hollowed trunk, shaking it, and Nicolas' hand would curl into the girl's hair, his arms tightening around her instinctively in protection. As if it would make a difference. The way they were positioned, for there would be no way for either of them to put up a fight if they were found. It was not death that Nicolas feared for he had faced death so many times he was almost intimate with it. But he had also faced aspects of life that had taught him that there were things far worse than death. He had lived a long long eventful life but the girl in his arms had not. She was too young to be facing such prospects. The past few days had shown him glimpses of a spirit that was as bright and brave as it was reckless, as loyal as it was infuriatingly independent. What a pity if that were to be snuffed out like it had never been, or, worse yet, corrupted into darkness. _What a pity if he were never to truly know her._

As they felt the monsters move past, Nicolas shut his eyes, forcing his thoughts to Lara. Lara, who was beyond his reach right now, her mind unable to connect with his. Lara who had felt so different in his arms. Her body had been all soft, full curves, so unlike the one he held now, which was lean and sleek, with no extra flesh anywhere. Still, Aleksandra didn't feel fragile like he had thought she would. No, there was nothing fragile about this girl, not those long, flat muscles of her steel-under-silk body, not her demeanor, alert yet relaxed, even under these hairiest of circumstances. He could feel her heart beating, as slow and steady as the measured breaths that filled and deflated her lungs. Her composure calmed him although nothing about their situation encouraged calm. There was no question that he held a warrior in his arms, but he was extremely conscious of the fact that he also held a woman, young but fully grown, now, or at least momentarily, his mate. However inappropriate it might have been given the situation, there was no denying the fire that raced over every surface of contact, even through the barrier of their clothes. Nicolas squeezed his eyes shut again as their hiding place rocked once more with the jolt of another powerful body hitting it. Again he forced his thoughts to the woman waiting for him so far away.

* * *

"Peace, sister," Juliette crooned softly. "He will come back to you."

Lara lifted tormented eyes to her from where she was sitting by the window, waiting, crying. It seemed she was always crying now. Her life had taken on the grey tones of bad dreams, ever since that night in Brazil when she thought she had lost Nicolas. She was sure there were worse things in the world than being alone in your own head, but at the moment she couldn't think of a single one. Back then, when it had first happened, even being physically face to face with Nicolas but unable to feel their bond had terrified her, now with him gone there was no longer a word to be found to describe how she felt. She could not function normally much less continue her work with the extremophiles. Not without Nicolas around.

"Will he?," she said, dully. "Come back?"

"You are his lifemate," Juliette replied with absolute conviction.

Lara turned away. That statement carried so many connotations, so much of Carpathian life revolved around that statement. And yet she could not bring herself to put faith in it. Nicolas was not here, beside her where she needed him. He was going to see that girl, the girl he suspected had something to do with this … disconnection. The one who had almost died at the hands of Nicolas' brothers right there in their own home. The girl he was now hearing inside his head.

Nicolas had tried to explain things to her but she had been unable to grasp his words and they had somehow not rung true to her. It was almost like he had been trying to convince himself, saying idiotic things like '_It must have been the lightning'_. She hadn't believed him at first when he had told her he was hearing that other girl inside his head - it had been a crazy idea, for all the bonded Carpathians present during that lightning storm, Nicolas' brothers included, had experienced the same "disconnection". But noone had reported hearing someone else in their head and everyone else had had their connections reestablished within a short period. But Nicolas was convinced that this strange girl was somehow responsible for their situation, that she could perhaps remedy it. Convinced enough to go after her on a wild goose chase and leave Lara by herself.

It was for their sake, he had told her over and over, between tears and tight hugs and hot kisses that no longer felt the same. _I'm doing this for us._

But was he?

_

* * *

_

The smell is gone,

said her voice in his head. Nicolas loosened the fingers he had curled into her hair and glanced upwards through the hollow.

_You think?_

_Yes._

He couldn't feel the vampires anymore, but lately he had found himself trusting Aleksandra's instincts more than his own. She seemed to be able to sense minute shifts in energy rather than _presence_ in the Carpathian sense of the word. In most situations it could mean useless sensory overload, but in the situation they were in, with the odds stacked so severely against them, it was wiser to be wary.

With a reluctance he did not want to admit, even to himself, Nicolas loosened his hold on the rest of her and allowed her to peel herself off of him. He felt her shiver as she did so, probably from the sudden loss of his body heat, and he began to rub her arms to warm her before he was even aware of what he was doing. She gazed at him strangely for a moment and then rose and climbed out of the hollow. He followed suit .

"By the gods, Aleksandra, we need to get out of here," he said to her. "There is no way in heaven, hell or anywhere in between that we can take on that many vampires. We need to call in the others."

"We had a deal, Nicolas," she reminded him quietly.

The deal. He was not to attempt to remove her from the area or try and contact anyone they knew OR she would let the lifebond stand and he would suffer her being his mate forever. It was a threat to sober the mighty. But still…..

"To hell with your deal! You've run into a nest - this is way too dangerous. This is not a game anymore!"

"Who said it ever was? And who said I just ran into them? I've been hunting them for weeks. "

He stared at her, dumbfounded, truly convinced now that she had taken leave of her senses. "But why?"

"Because I don't like them hunting me and I refuse to live scared of my own shadow." Aleksandra lifted her eyes and met his gaze steadfastly for the first time. "Also, I think we all originated from the same place. This place."


	24. Chapter 24

Nicolas shook his head. "What do you mean Aleksandra? You're not making any sense."

The girl bent and gingerly poked at the dirt with a finger. She made a face. "Completely contaminated. Eccchhhh."

Before he was even aware of what he was doing, Nicolas grabbed at her hand like she was a toddler who wasn't suppose to get dirty. "Don't!," he scolded. "That soil has to be crawling with parasites."

"It is," she replied calmly, rising. "But my skin's not broken so it's fine."

"It is not fine," Nicolas breathed. "Nothing about this is fine. The vampires could come back at any minute and we would be worse than dead."

"Leave then, Nicolas," she said patiently. "This is not your journey."

Nicolas' mouth opened and shut as he struggled for the right words to say. She turned on her heel and began to walk away through the trees. He followed.

"Go away," she said again. "You don't want to be here, so stop following me around !"

"You know I can't do that."

"You refuse to do it. That's different."

"I can't leave you here by yourself, Aleksandra."

"You should. That way I won't need to cover…." Nicolas stopped in his tracks and stared in surprise as she suddenly whirled and he saw the flash of silver in her hand. "…. your back!"

The flash of silver whizzed by his cheek, so close he felt air brush his skin. Before he could react, a deep voice spoke from behind him.

"My word, the dragon is strong in you. Who are you, little girl?"

**

* * *

**

The silver haired mage watched as the tall form of the vampire knelt by the thralled human. All that registered with him was that it was a woman – to his mind she would be as nameless and faceless as all the countless others. Collateral damage. He took in, unconcernedly, the sight and the wet sounds of the blooding, something that would be replicated many times over the countryside that night. Nothing would matter but assuaging hunger. This would be a night of feeding and fortification.

**A night of preparation.**

* * *

A violent shiver went through Aleksandra and it had nothing to do with the tall dangerous-looking stranger now regarding her. No, this shiver came from a distance, from an evil that was far away and yet inexplicably close. Not _one_ evil. Many evils, or, at least, many manifestations of it.

The stranger cocked his head, obviously noting her reaction. "You felt that, too?," he said.

"_Ja szelem_," Nicolas breathed. He had reflexively put himself between Aleksandra and the newcomer who had dodged her cunningly thrown knife. A newcomer, he realized, whom he knew. "Dominic."

"Well met, Nicolas de la Cruz. And, no, I did not come from the shadowlands, although sometimes it feels like it."

Dominic, the most ancient of the powerful Dragonseeker clan, was one of the greatest Carpathian warriors who had ever lived. Not long ago he had made the ultimate sacrifice of ingesting tainted blood in order to infiltrate the ranks of the vampire. To Nicolas' knowledge this was the first contact Dominic had made with any Carpathian since then.

Nicolas studied him, understandably wary. Tall, strong and crafty, Dominic was a legendary fighter and there was no way to know if he had truly turned now. His senses told him nothing - but then again a Carpathian of Dominic's age and power would certainly be capable of deception if he chose. Aleksandra's wary calm comforted him, however. In only a few days, he had learned to trust her instincts as much as his own.

Dominic did not seem interested in his presence , however, only the girl's. His green eyes were studying her intently and, to her credit, she did not waver under his gaze. He had already recognized the dragonseeker in Aleksandra - now he seemed to be probing for something else. "So you're the one we've been hunting," he said softly. "Now why is that, little one?"

"You have it backwards," she replied, just as softly. "_I _was hunting _you_."

Nicolas, his senses still on hyper alert, watched as the ancient dragonseeker's lips curled slightly, putting a ghost of a smile on his scarred face. He couldn't imagine being able to smile while vampire parasites roamed your insides, but then again, Dominic was no ordinary Carpathian.

"It seems we are both looking for answers," he said to Aleksandra. "Why don't we help each other, little girl?"

* * *

As Dominic led them through a labyrinth of caves, Nicolas' apprehension grew. Unfamiliar places brought out his paranoid warrior instincts, and the strange, innate understanding that seemed to exist between Dominic and Aleksandra didn't help any. The girl hadn't even asked who Dominic was, why he was running with the vampires, or even why they should be helping each other. She seemed to feel no threat from him and obviously that was enough for her. Nicolas, however, was debating flight every step of the way.

The entrance of the caves was not far from the clearing from where the nest of vampires had emerged. Strange, for the earth in that area had been soft loam, dark and rich, while a few tens of meters away it abruptly gave way to the limestone and gypsum substrate that caves often formed from. Inside the caves it was wet and cool, their path following the edges of a stream that flowed through the first two or three caverns. Nicolas then understood why the vampires had not chosen to hide here - under their feet the substrate was carved rock – no rich soil for them to rest in.

"Is this familiar to you, Aleksandra?" came Dominic's voice in the dimness.

"It doesn't look exactly right, but it feels familiar," was the cryptic answer.

Dominic nodded. "These are living caves - the formations will have changed from when you were here last."

Nicolas looked around and took in the truth of Dominic's words. Speleothems were everywhere, in the caves, along the tunnels that connected the caves - constantly morphing dripstones that clung precariously to the ceiling and sprouted from the floor for spectacular visual effect. But there was something else here, something eerie that Nicolas could not fathom.

"What is this place, Dominic?," he asked as they made their way deeper into the mountain.

"I am not sure," he replied. "Something went on in here that isn't here anymore. Something important."

"How much do you know?"

"Bits and pieces. Things I have heard, things I have pulled out of the minds of the others. The group I am with - something ties most of them to this place."

"Natalya used to say that some places speak to her, that she can sometimes discern part of what has transpired by simply being in the area. Does this place tell you nothing?"

"On the contrary, it tells me too much. I cannot make head or tail of it. There is a story here but it is jumbled and disordered, like flotsam in a maelstrom. Maybe she can make sense of it."

They emerged into the biggest of the caves, a domed cavern strangely free of the speleothem formations that had characterized the other chambers. The walls were smooth and in places the bedrock was oddly flat. It was obvious that mother nature had not been the only one to do work in here.

Aleksandra paced the cavern slowly, turned round, and then round again. It was empty now but it hadn't always been. Like Dominic said, the place swirled with the essence of the past. Like all places that had seen drama and tragedy and evil and conflict, it had absorbed the energies and retained some of the life forces of those who had passed by, of events that had happened. However, they did not confuse her the way they did Dominic. They did not confuse her because she, too, was tied to this place and some of her own essence lingered here. All her life she had had vague memories of this place, memories she sometimes could not make out, could not make sense of. It was clear to her now. This was not the place she had been born. But this was the place she had been made.

* * *

Later, in the relative safety of the ruins Dominic had brought them to, Nicolas spoke. "They were all bred? All of those vampires? Bred in that place?"

"They didn't start off as vampires. They had been bred as experiments. One of Xavier's lesser mages had been tasked with this and he borrowed technology from the humans. They were testing different multiple combinations of genes - jaguar, mage, human, Carpathian …. "

"They were all vampire, Dominic."

"Newly vampire, Nicolas. Half of the group you saw had been bred here, like Aleksandra. And then turned."

"They're my brothers then," the girl said, troubled.

"Technically, yes. The possible combinations of genes were endless but there was but one gene donor per race. One Carpathian, one mage…"

"Xavier?," Nicolas breathed and Dominic shook his head.

"Razvan. Which probably explains the power of the dragon in you, little girl." He smiled a little at Aleksandra. "It also makes you… partly… my … great-niece? Twice or thrice removed?"

If that was true, it also made her Lara's sister in some twisted way. The thought made Nicolas' stomach do a slow roll. He swallowed. "And the Carpathian?," he asked, more to change the subject than anything.

"Vadim Malinov, as far as I can tell."

Nicolas shut his eyes. The name would mean nothing to Aleksandra but it meant a great deal to him. The Malinovs had been as brothers.

"You have apparently been a lot of trouble, Aleksandra," Dominic continued."First, the woman who bore you in her womb escaped and evaded capture. They didn't get you back till you were several months old. And then you escaped again."

"Their security was rather sloppy considering they were protecting their master race," Nicolas commented.

Aleksandra made a rude noise. "Master race?" she scoffed. "Are you kidding me? I was a reject."

"What do you mean?"

"A reject. Now I understand what happened. Stas and I – we had been singled out for execution because we were rejects. We had failed their tests."

"Tests?"

"They had been bred to be superior beings," Dominic explained. "It's only logical their powers would be constantly tested from an early age."

Aleksandra continued with a frown. "All that poking and prodding. The blood letting. The other… stuff. I never healed fast enough, that's why I was rejected."

Nicolas cringed inside at what that statement implied. That she had been forcefully kept in the ground continuously for the first few years of her life was abomination enough, but that she was let out only to be tested …

"The jaguar boy?" he said, to break his own train of thought. "What was his shortcoming?"

"Stas was rejected for not being aggressive enough. I guess aggression was what he was being bred for, being jaguar male and all."

"And rejects were executed?"

Aleksandra nodded. "It's only now that I understand. One day a bunch of us were brought above ground to that clearing where we found the vampires. We were lashed to each other lying on the dirt and left out."

"To burn in the sun." Nicolas said suddenly, recoiling in horror at the thought. "That's hideous!"

"Stas and I got away because the ropes caught fire when the others burned as the sun came out."

Dominic straightened. "They hadn't counted on you being able to walk in daylight," he said in sudden comprehension. "I understand now - that's why they wanted you back. You were not bred for that ability, Aleksandra. That's why they never thought to test you for it. As far as I know they have yet to produce a daywalker who survived the other mutations. No wonder they wanted you back!"

Nicolas added before he could help himself : "Walking in daylight isn't the only thing she does that she's not supposed to be able to do."

Aleksandra shot him a glare. When she turned back to Dominic he was gazing at her with his disturbing green eyes. "Breaking all the rules, aren't you?" he said.

"I wasn't aware there were any," she muttered defensively.

Again the almost-smile curled Dominic's lips. "Well, I suppose they aren't rules if they don't apply to you," he murmured. "Tell me, little girl, do you know of any rules concerning Carpathian lifebonds?"

Aleksandra fell tensely silent.

"If the answer is yes, could you then tell me why it appears that you are now on one end of a life bond whose other end is attached to a man I distinctly remember being attached to someone else the last time I saw him?"


	25. Chapter 25

"That is quite a story, child."

"It's the truth, nothing more," Aleksandra said. "And stop calling me child."

"If I stop calling you child it will be to call you infant," Dominic replied with a shrug. "You are so _very_ young, Aleksandra." He took in the girl's undisguised glare with some amusement. It was a wonder to him to even feel anything. "But not too young to get into trouble, eh? Where in the world did you get the idea that you could sever lifebonds?"

"_A _lifebond," she stressed heatedly. "My brother's. I had nothing to do with what happened with this… other one."

Dominic's green eyes bored into her, serious now. "Are you sure, Aleksandra?"

"Of course I'm sure! Why in hell would I want to mess with someone else's messy lovelife? Especially if it links me with someone who thinks I'm a worm? I didn't even know he existed till I got bonded."

"I don't mean to say that you bonded yourself to Nicolas on purpose," Dominic mused. The way Nicolas cringed at the girl's words had not escaped him. "What I'm saying is are you sure you weren't doing something that … encouraged… this energy surge that you think cut Nicolas and Lara's lifebond?"

"Like what? Practicing to be a lightning rod?"

"I see your tongue is as quick as those reflexes of yours. I suggest you tame it. This is a serious matter."

"I never said it wasn't! But everyone keeps looking to me for answers and I don't have any! I didn't do this on purpose! I don't want to be bonded to him any more than he wants to be bonded to me. I didn't do anything!"

"I believe you."

"Well, gee, you want a medal?"

"No," Dominic replied smoothly. He gazed intently at the girl, taking in her exasperated expression, the voice that sounded near tears. This was obviously a touchy subject to her, and rightly so. "Now let me see if I have the story straight. There was an electric storm, a lightning bolt. The two of you were knocked unconscious and the bonds of all the mated Carpathians present were momentarily severed. Everyone got reconnected fairly quickly but you, Nicolas, got reconnected to a different person."

Nicolas looked a bit startled. "Well, yes, I suppose that is right. I never thought about it in quite that way." No, he had always thought of the bond with Aleksandra as something separate and distinct from the one he had shared with Lara. Dominic saw it as the same bond that had gone astray. The thought was disconcerting.

"And then you, little girl, go find a way to cut the connection , much the same way you cut your brother's." he continued and the two of them nodded. "Are you _sure_ you had cut it, though?"

The two nodded again. "I couldn't feel her anymore," Nicolas affirmed.

"At that point could you feel Lara again?"

After a moment's hesitation, Nicolas shook his head. "No."

Dominic leaned back, his face troubled. "So the disconnection with Aleksandra did not automatically mean a reconnection on Lara's side. But how did the two of you get reconnected again?"

It was a moment before Nicolas spoke. "I believe it was when I gave her blood. She had lost a lot of hers and…" he trailed off, unable to continue.

"A blood exchange," Dominic mused. "That makes sense in a way. And you, Aleksandra, haven't severed it again because?"

Aleksandra looked away but there was no hiding anything from her kinsman. His disturbing green eyes bored ever more deeply into her.

"My word," he commented with a frown. "You're running on fumes. You have barely enough energy to put one foot in front of the other much less sever a lifemate bond." Aleksandra turned away as he reached out to touch her face, but he grasped her chin with gentle fingers and turned her to face him. His eyes searched hers. "How long since you've taken blood?"

"None of your business," she replied, swatting at his hand.

"How long do you expect to keep going on nothing but apples and berries? You have no energy reserves left and you're tapping into your life force now, you foolish child!" He turned on Nicolas. "And you? She's your lifemate, however temporary you believe that situation may be and it's your duty to look out for her wellbeing!"

"She won't take my blood," he said defensively. "I have offered many times."

"That is a poor excuse, Nicolas."

"Oh get off his case," Aleksandra said. "He would have forced me if I hadn't made him a threat he couldn't ignore."

"And what threat would that be?"

"To let the bond stand so he'll be stuck with me."

Dominic stared at her incredulously for a moment and then suddenly he threw his head back and laughed. It seemed like it had been centuries since he had laughed and it was difficult to stop. By now Nicolas was familiar with the way Aleksandra could rouse emotions in unmated Carpathians. Nevertheless the two of them exchanged disturbed glances, each of them wondering if Dominic needed to be slapped out of his hysterics. They decided, wisely, against it.

At last Dominic's guffaws died down.

"By the gods, you are a piece of work, Aleksandra. Nothing conventional for you."

"I didn't make up the rules."

"But you are breaking them. Quite a number of them." He shook his head and looked at her . "You are challenging the rules that are the very foundation of our existence, little girl. If you are right about the bonds, then does that mean that energy is all they are? Energy that can be manipulated, be made to self-destruct?"

"I didn't manipulate…"

"Oh but you did. That is exactly what you did. By tampering with your brother's bond you may have set off a chain reaction of events that changed the rules entirely."

"Nobody explained any rules to me in the beginning. Nobody has ever even insinuated that there were any. Do you really know what a bond is, Dominic? Other than this vague notion of being able to see colors again and suddenly, melodramatically finding a '_purpose for living' _in someone you don't know? "

The heavy sarcasm in her voice was not lost on Dominic. Neither was the raw logic of her words. He sighed.

Aleksandra wasn't done. "How do you know that what I did changed something when you don't know what the thing was in the first place?" she added, speaking through gritted teeth.

"Fair enough," Dominic said softly.

"I'm not going to apologize for doing what I did to my brother, whatever it was. It saved him from turning vampire!"

"I am not asking you to apologize. I want to understand it, is all."

"Don't expect me to explain. I don't understand it all myself."

"Tell me this much - how do the two of you know that the bond between Lara and Nicolas is the real one and the one between the two of you is the accident - and not the other way around? "

Nicolas and Aleksandra exchanged horrified looks. The thought had obviously not occurred to either of them. They tore their gazes from each other.

"It has to be," said Aleksandra.

"It is," said Nicolas.

"Uh huh," said Dominic.

They talked well into the night. Thankfully for Aleksandra, the subject shifted away from her deeds…or misdeeds…. towards the situation with the vampires. Dominic hadn't much to add to what they already knew - he had been infiltrating the ranks of the vampire for some time but very little was clear to him. Rather than working together for some evil cause, as the Carpathian prince Mikhail was convinced they were doing, Dominic believed that the vampires were fragmented, divided, each group trying to get its own way rather than helping each other towards a common cause. Selin, the mage traveling with this particular group, had been one of Xavier's lesser mages. Xavier apparently did not inspire loyalty for it seemed Selin was working on his own towards his own ends. Matai, the master vampire with them, had also been one of the lesser minions of Maxim Malinov, and though the possibility existed that he remained loyal, Dominic had yet to confirm that fact.

"This is by far the most organized group I have come in contact with. The mage is clever enough not to reveal too much of his plans. I doubt that anyone but he knows exactly what they are. Only one thing is clear and that is he was involved in the experiment that genetically engineered a number of children who are now entering adulthood. Apparently they have all been programmed to return here at this time."

"_What_?" Aleksandra said incredulously.

"It's no accident that you have come back here now, Aleksandra."

"Are you telling me that I was doing what they wanted me to do?"

"Apparently yes."

"No. No way."

"Then why did you come here?"

"Because I refuse to be hunted like some animal! I came here to find why I was being hunted and to do something about it. "

"And you do not believe that hunting you was part of a plan to bring you back here? "

The girl had no answer for that. Nicolas reached out a hand to her in a gesture of comfort but she pushed it away and went outside. "Let her go," Dominic said to him, when he would have gone after her. "She will need time to assimilate all of that."

"You don't understand," Nicolas said to him. "She has a remarkable ability for finding trouble….."

"Then it is fortunate that she seems to have an equally remarkable ability to get herself _out_ of trouble. I know it is hard for your lifemate instincts to take but she _can_ take care of herself. We need to talk, Nicolas. You are in quite a quandary here."

* * *

Aleksandra walked out into the night, kicking at everything in her path. It had been an eventful evening, and not necessarily in a good sense. This idea that she had been programmed to return _here, now, _sent chills up and down her spine. If it hadn't been her own free will that had brought her there, then how much of a lie did that make of her entire life up to now?

Coming across this Dominic had been interesting, for he had helped answer some of the questions that had been whirling in her brain for a while. But it had also been disconcerting. Not just because he seemed to be able to see inside her head even when she didn't want him to - something not even Dimitri or Stas could do. Or even because she sensed a suffering just below his surface that he would not reveal, that he adamantly and actively kept from her. He seemed to know her and she him better than their three or four-hour acquaintance could justify, and that unnerved her more than she cared to admit. Was it really because he was blood-kin? Were connections forged by dragon blood that strong?

Moreover, Nicolas treated him with a deference and respect that was unusual to say the least. That Dominic was ancient and powerful beyond comprehension was not in doubt, but she knew that Nicolas had been wary of him at the start. She had heard something of Dominic's mission from Dimitri, for her brother had been one of those who had taken his blood at his request so he could be tracked if needed. Dominic had ingested vampire blood and being alert to the possibility that he had turned was certainly reasonable behavior. But he hadn't turned.

To Aleksandra, taking vampire blood seemed a completely insane thing to do (and she had had her own share of majorly zany moments) and it was probably the source of that suffering in him, that pain that she could somehow sense, if not feel. And to make things worse he didn't seem to have much to show for it. No groundbreaking information. Vampires doing their evil thing? Mages plotting for supremacy? All old news. Boring news.

From the way she had heard the Carpathian prince speak in Brazil she knew there was this prevailing theory about a grand plot against the Carpathians, a master plan for the downfall of the race. She didn't buy it - or at least she didn't buy all of it. What would be the point? Nicolas and Dominic spoke of all this genetic engineering to produce a master race. Her own theory was that the crazy old master mage (now recently discovered to possibly be her grandfather? great grandfather?) was testing things he wanted to engineer in _himself. _From what she had heard of him she could tell he was a self-centered egomaniac, and she doubted that a self-centered egomaniac would have any desire to produce an entire race of beings superior to himself. No, that did _not_ figure. She and her…. brothers….. were prototypes, yes, but not of a master race. She strongly suspected that they had been bred as a feasibility study. Xavier was looking to use the recombinant genes on himself.

As for the germ warfare Xavier was allegedly using on the Carpathian women and children - well she knew the extremophiles were for real for she had come across them herself. She had theories about that, too, but had lately been learning that sometimes it was better to keep one's opinions to oneself. Nicolas had explained to her how his (former) lifemate Lara had been destroying the extremophiles one by one through a complicated and exhausting process that required her to tend meticulously to each person. He had been terribly offended when she had gaped and asked him if he knew what a ridiculous waste of time it was to be targetting microbes individually, especially with the likelihood..…no the _certainty _of reinfection. He had turned red and furious and yelled quite a bit about how she didn't understand the sacrifice Lara was making.

"But why the need for such insufferable sacrifice ?" she had asked him, truly baffled. "Why not just take medicine?"

He had then called her a child who didn't know what she was talking about and walked off in a huff. Aleksandra had been honestly bewildered by his reaction. She _did_ know what she was talking about. She was intimately acquainted with the extremophiles because as a child any contact with them had given her hives. Her eyes would puff up and water and she would swell up and itch miserably and have difficulty breathing. Dimitri could not come up with any Carpathian remedy but his occasionally leaving her with humans had had its advantages - it was discovered that these "episodes" could be alleviated by a human-engineered miracle known as Benadryl.

It was this that had taught Aleksandra that sometimes having all sorts of fantastic powers was not always a good thing, for it kept the powerful from utilizing the simple and the obvious. The Carpathian methods of healing were not infallible and being with humans had taught her that it was possible to survive without such powers. Humans had found a way around it by engineering medicines, and the monks at the lamasery where Dimitri had often left them had further simplified that by using plants and herbs to help the body to heal itself. It was at the lamasery that she had finally found a cure for the infection that had caused her such bouts of misery - after noting that she never had the "episodes" when she was with the monks, she realized that it was the yogurt that was part of their simple diet in the mountains that had helped her body kill off the microbe. Yogurt made by the monks themselves, from the whole raw milk of goats that grazed on fresh grass and drank unpolluted water. There was certainly no assurance that the same remedy would work on other Carpathians, given that her own genetic make up was allegedly so different, but it did offer the tantalizing possibility that some human remedy might help or even that they could borrow human technology to fight the microbe wholesale. Killing the microbes individually was ridiculous and would ultimately be futile for they multiplied like mutant rabbits and each healed person had almost a 100% chance of reinfection.

But of course she wasn't going to tell anyone that, given her experience with speaking her mind. Her opinions seemed to offend people in the worst way so it was probably better to just shut up. After all, Nicolas had been mortally affronted by the suggestion that human medicines could replace his lifemate's work. How would he react if she suggested they try curdled milk?

Aleksandra decided she wasn't going to find out.

* * *

Nicolas found that he wanted to squirm under Dominic's gaze. Now the ancient dragonseeker's full attention was on him and it was not a comfortable situation.

"I don't know about you," Dominic mused, " but I believe the girl when she says that she had nothing to do with what happened to the two of you."

"She has no cause to lie," Nicolas admitted.

"Do you really think she is a worm?"

Nicolas made a pained face.

"The word 'abomination' was bouncing around in her head. Did you really call her that?"

Nicolas sighed and nodded. "Yes, but I regret it now. I didn't mean it."

"Of course you did." Dominic spoke quietly but honestly. "No need to sugarcoat anything here. Your anger is justified. It just shouldn't be directed at her, however. I can tell she hates this as much as you do. Perhaps more. I am sure her strange abilities have made people jump to conclusions, made everyone wary of her and that truly pains her. She is wilful and impulsive and I understand that you are torn between wanting to protect her and wanting to wring her neck- but I sense no evil in her."

"No, she is not evil."

"But she has turned your life upside down, has she not? How did you deal with your brothers after she was attacked?"

"You were there?"

"No, but Selin spoke of it in great detail."

"That's another thing I do not understand, Dominic. If she is dragonseeker then how is it that my brothers attacked her? It is legend that no Carpathian can harm a dragonseeker."

"She hasn't told you?"

"Told me what?"

"There was magic involved there, Nicolas."

Nicolas rose from his seat. "It was Lara? She was the only one present with mage blood. I don't believe …"

"_Through_ Lara," Dominic corrected. "It wasn't actually her. Selin, the mage with us, used her as a conduit. "

"But why would this mage want Aleksandra dead? You said yourself they want her back."

"Not dead, Nicolas. Do you think that it was an accident that Gregori was close by when it happened? It was all part of a plan."

"And this severing of lifebonds - was it part of a plan as well?"

Dominic pursed his lips, the thought sobering him."Not that I know of," he said at last. "Now that you mention it, it could have been an unfortunate byproduct of Selin's magical tampering. He wanted Aleksandra injured just enough so she would be put in the ground alone, where he could get to her. It didn't work out that way however. He couldn't get past the wards around her resting place."

"Natalya's work. She came in to help when that… incident… happened."

"My compliments. Apparently it was airtight."

"Shura got out, though."

Dominic's lip curled. "Why am I not surprised?" he said. "From the little I know of her I can already say that she probably manipulates energy better than anyone I have come across in my very long life. To her everything is energy - motion, life-force, magic – and she manipulates it as such. All of her apparent abilities are actually just manifestations of that. "

"It has manifested in things that she should not be able to do."

"Perhaps she can do these things, simply because she does not know that she cannot." He gazed intently at Nicolas. "Worry not, Nicolas de la Cruz. I assure you that girl has every intention of breaking off this bond with you just as soon as she is able. I suppose you have not considered the possibility of letting it stand?"

Nicolas looked startled. "I have a lifemate, Dominic."

"Yes, and she is just outside."

"I mean Lara."

Dominic's green eyes bored into him. "You know that is not true, at least for the moment."

"And what would you have me do, Dominic?," he whispered.

"I would have you consider all the possibilities, Nicolas."

Nicolas fell uncomfortably silent for a moment. When he could bear the silence no longer, he turned to gaze at the older man and attempted to change the subject. "What about you?" he said suddenly.

"What about me?"

"How long do you plan to keep this up? It cannot be easy. Tis a wonder you have not turned."

"You wondered about that, didn't you? " The ancient dragonseeker looked slightly amused.

"Can you blame me?"

"No. Tis truly a struggle, Nicolas."

"Is it worth it?"

"It will be once I figure out how the machinatons of these vampire tribes work into the bigger picture."

"Are you sure there is a bigger picture?" Nicolas asked quietly.

Dominic sighed. "I have considered the possibility that they are working independently – I am sure that is not what Mikhail wants to hear, however."

"So what, if it is the truth?"

"I do not yet know it to be the truth, Nicolas. I feel certain that they started with the bigger picture - the master plan if you will - but there is that intriguing possibility that there are breakaway groups. Xavier does not exactly inspire loyalty and neither does Maxim Malinov."

"How do you intend to find out?"

Dominic shrugged fatalistically. "I will watch and wait."


	26. Chapter 26

Aleksandra woke with a start. As was her mettle, she sat up and came awake quickly. She was stiff from lying on the ground, but surprisingly she was not cold. The reason for that became obvious as a garment slipped unheeded off her shoulders. It was a jacket of soft leather --- Nicolas' jacket. His scent was all over it and she inhaled deeply of it before she was aware of what she was doing. Catching herself, she tossed it aside, appalled.

Then she saw the apple sitting beside her. She picked it up. A peace offering? She frowned a little. Had they fought? She frowned some more. The question should really be more of : had they _not_ fought? She stared at the apple. It was perfectly red and shiny. She took a chunk out of it with her small white teeth and suddenly realized she was ravenous. Devouring it in a few bites she then tossed the core and wiped the apple juice from her chin. It was then that she saw the jacket again. _His_ jacket, discarded rather ungraciously on the ground. She hesitated a moment and then picked it up and folded it neatly before laying it down on the ground beside the spot he would later rise from. She could be civil, too, she supposed.

She rose then, brushing herself off, and her stomach growled loudly. She sighed. Dominic had been right --- she wouldn't be able to survive much longer on apples and berries. She _was_ tapping into her life force now (and the thought that Dominic could tell was annoying and more than a little scary), but she didn't have much choice. She didn't have the time or the energy to hunt for more food and she had to conserve the little she had brought in case this was going to take longer then she had anticipated. She sighed again. _This. _What was _this_? She had come here for a specific purpose, she remembered telling Nicolas and Dominic with Conviction in her voice. To find out why she was being hunted and to do something about it. Now she knew why she was being hunted. But she didn't yet know what she was going to do about it. She had fallen asleep trying to figure it out last night --- another testament to the fact that her energy reserves were running low.

The thought of Nicolas' offer of blood was becoming ever more tempting as the days went by, but giving in to that could be disastrous. The possibility loomed that another blood exchange would further strengthen the accursed bond. Make it even harder to break. She couldn't risk that. And yet--- taking blood was the only thing that would give her enough zap to be able to _break_ the bond like they both wanted. Now how was that for a vicious circle? A vicous circle with a morbid sense of humor for Nicolas was the only possible blood source right now. Calling on Dimitri was not in the realm of possibilities that she was considering. No, these were her problems to take care of and she would do it by herself, which was the only correct thing to do. She would have to figure out a way to do it quickly because, one, she wasn't going to last much longer without real sustenance and, two, and she hated to admit it even to herself, the damned bond was getting stronger anyway and it pulled ever harder as the days dragged by. On both ends. She was only too aware that Nicolas watched her constantly now and was mindful of her every move, and keeping up her shields was exhausting. And she was having …. dreams. Dreams she couldn't really remember but she knew that _he _was in them somehow. And the fact that she wanted to blush even though she could recollect no details of the dreams was not a good sign. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind with some difficulty.

She stepped out of the small cave into the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. She didn't know what time it was in the conventional sense for she had never had need of a watch, but with her way of life it was natural that she perceive time in reference to the setting of the sun. It was about an hour til sundown. She swore softly. That didn't give her enough time.

_Enough time to do what?_ said a niggling voice in her mind. She frowned. What indeed? She had no plans as of yet. She had fallen asleep trying to come up with one. Her frown grew even deeper.

A sudden spasm racked her body, a flash of fear so strong it almost staggered her. Her head snapped up. It was a summons --- no, it was someone hiding a summons. Someone was in trouble but didn't want her to know about it. There were only a handful of people close enough to her for her to hear that loud. That someone was trying to hide it – the feeling had gone almost before she had felt it. But it had been close. She lifted her head to take in the position of the sun and swore again. Not an hour --- more like forty-five minutes to full dark. If the trouble was vampire-related, they were in a pickle. _Shit on a stick! _ Nevertheless she headed off in the direction of the flash, trying to calm the sudden revolutions of her stomach. She had a sneaking feeling she knew what she would find, _who _she would find_. _She hoped against hope that she was wrong.

* * * * *

Aleksandra heard the snap of twigs breaking under moving feet and ducked behind a tree. Only one person could be moving about at this time ---- and that was the mage. She made herself go still, made her mind go blank and her energy mimic that of the shrubbery beside her. To anyone peeking around the tree she would be instantly, embarrassingly visible. But to a high-level mental probe she would be as grass and tree, with maybe a hint of wind in their leaves. Such was the sophistication of mental powers. She held her sword in her hand, and its solid weight was comforting, as was the feel of the wooden stakes in a pouch in her hip. They would be no help against the mage, but if she survived the next few minutes without getting caught, they would have a chance to serve their purpose. The stakes were hurriedly, unevenly cut and rough and she had snagged several splinters in her hurry, but they were there. Primitive, but experience had shown her they would be effective.

She held her self-imposed camouflage til she felt the mage gather energy and take to the sky. She then held the illusion a few minutes more. Time was of the essence but she was not foolish or arrogant enough to risk being caught by a mage when she was this low on energy. When she could detect his presence any longer, she left her hiding place and traced his steps. She caught a whiff of his thoughts and tried to make sense of them. She did not like what she saw. She looked up and liked what she saw there even less. The angle of the sun had changed. Only about half an hour til full dark.

Aleksandra had been raised Carpathian by a Carpathian and the dark was the Carpathian world. But she had also spent enough time around humans to occasionally, reflexively feel that tingle-down-the-spine when sunset came and daylight gave way to darkness. Especially when one was alone, as she was now. Especially when she knew that there really were things that did worse than go bump in the night. She was very close to the vampire nest she had discovered some nights ago and their scent still lingered, the unmistakable foul of decay.

She had wanted to do this on her own. And what was that her master used to keep repeating…

_Wise man say : be careful what you wish for, you might get it._

Oh she certainly seemed to be getting it now. She was by her lonesome here, with no power toshift, no energy to use any of her "extra" abilities. For all intents and purposes she was a walking human at the moment, with the frailties and vulnerabilities that implied. Not a good thing to be when you were alone, near a known nest of vampires, barely half an hour before their time would be upon the world. Not a good thing at all.

A gust of wind blew and she sent out a probing thought with it, light enough so that it would just feel like the wind if it touched anyone it shouldn't. Yes, the mage had passed through here but he had been occupied, distracted, deep in his own thoughts. She went in the direction he had come from and ended up at the foot of a hill that seemed to be solid rock. But he had been here, she thought. She could feel it. The mage had been here. He had been _in _here. She moved quickly, half-sprinting along the perimeter of the hill. Yes, there were wards here, strong ones. Probably an opening there, although the wards sent out the suggestion that there were not, which was exactly what wards were supposed to do. But she hadn't the luxury of time to figure them out. She had to figure out another way in. She retraced her steps, her head tilted up, searching higher than eye level. She stopped._ There_. A crack in the wall.

She was still a moment, contemplating it in the fading light. It seemed that it wasn't warded for she could just see it behind a diagonal lip of rock. Either the mage was sloppy at warding or this had been deliberate. Which, of course, would mean that this was a trap. Either way it didn't matter. Her senses told her she could not wait for dark (despite it being minutes away) which meant she couldn't wait for Nicolas' help. Or Dominic's, for that matter. Besides, if this was a trap, better for just one of them to fall into it instead of all three. She had to go in. The compulsion was strong, the sense of danger even stronger. She was alone in this, as she had wanted to be. Pushing other thoughts from her mind, Aleksandra began to climb the wall of rock. It was steep but she was mountain-bred after all. Amazing what you could learn from watching mountain goats.

She made it up to the crack with only a few scrapes. She had slipped just once. Yes it was a crack in the rock, one that led into the belly of the mountain. It was dark. Aleksandra hesitated only a moment and then slipped sideways into the fissure.

Oblivious to the mortal and immortal, the sun slid even lower and the shadows of the trees crept up the side of the mountain like dark fingers reaching for prey.


	27. Chapter 27

_"Wise man say only fool rush in."_

_"That was Elvis, master, not a wise man."_

_"Elvis," he sniffed, " was wise man."_

_"I think he was talking about courting, not fighting."_

_The little man sniffed again. "As wise man say, same difference."_

It did not escape Aleksandra that it was in times like these, the hairiest times, that she always fell back on the wisdom of the old monk she had grown up listening to and learning from at the lamasery. She slipped through the hole, battle-ready and cautious, and then, not finding a floor immediately on the other side, slipped and scraped her way down the rocky wall until she did. As soon as she was certain of firm footing, she reached back over her shoulder for her mini-crossbow and loaded it. Not as accurate as point-and- shoot, not as powerful as full-sized, but it would do for first line of defense. She patted the sword at her hip to comfort herself and then reached into her pocket for a slim, powerful flashlight. Even her night sight was failing her at the moment, but this was not the time and place to moan and groan about that. A flashlight would do for now. That, and the pull she was feeling ever more strongly would be enough to find what she was looking for. She swept the light around in an arc in front of her, in back, above and below. Rock and tunnels all around, no surprise there. She had no watch but she knew that outside, the sun was very close to touching the horizon. She couldn't think about that now. She squared her shoulders and headed off in the direction of her instincts.

* * * * * *

The smell hit her as she turned the corner, so thick it was like a wall. She had to stop and take a step back for a moment. Something had died here.

Or something dead had walked here.

She also had the feeling something was going to die here. Soon.

Outside, the edge of the sun dipped below the horizon.

The sense of danger overwhelmed her again, threatening to shut down her thought processes. It was too intense to sustain itself however so she took a breath and rode out the wave. There was a definite drawback to being able to sense other beings ---- sometimes she couldn't tell for sure if something was coming from her or someone else. Today she could. There was someone nearby and the terror being projected at her was so was so raw, so basic that it threatened to overwhelm. The sense of danger drove her blood harder, feeding her muscles and nerve-endings. Even her night-sight grew sharper. She was sure who it was now. She rounded the corner and took in the thing curled on the floor of the cave.

"Stas," she said. "Get up."

The figure on the ground moaned but did not obey. Conscious of the downward movement of the sun that she could feel but not see she got to her knees and shook him.

"You're chained," she murmured. "Damn."

He looked upat her, blinked half mast eyes and mumbled something incomprehensible.

"And drugged," she added. "Double damn."

He tried to sit up and groaned.

"Great, just great. What did they give you?"

When he couldn't answer she tried to pick the images out of his mind but he was to fuddled for her to make any sense of it. There was no time to get into that now. She had hoped she was wrong but it turned out she had been right about who had been in danger.

_He had been summoned, too._

"Shura," he half-spoke, half-groaned. "Ch…. ch…"

"What are you trying to say?"

Stas tried again though his tongue had cleaved to the roof of his mouth. "Chr…. chrap…"

"Crap?"

"_Trap," _he forced out and fell back with a groan.

Shura nodded. "Yes, Stas, I figured," she said and began to fiddle with his chains.

"Out," he moaned.

"Yes we're going to get out," she said with more conviction than she felt at the moment.

The chains were heavy iron and had been slipped into an iron ring spiked into to the rocky wall. Like some old fashioned medieval dungeon. The lock was solid and with her powers gone AWOL, she was going to have to free it the old-fashioned way. Her fingers tingled as she touched the wall. The rock here was full of iron ore. She should have guessed. She glanced around, sent out a feeling probe. Walls and ceiling, rich with ore. They were surrounded by iron, so Stas couldn't shift. So neither of them could shift. And underfoot…..

Unlike the rest of the caves that had led into this one, the substrate was soil rather than rock. But unlike the iron this didn't surprise her.

The stench in here was unmistakable and it wasn't Stas. He never got this stinky even when he didn't change his socks, or even when he came in out of the rain with his jaguar coat all damp. No, the stench was pure vampire.

And outside, half of the sun had slid below the horizon and the shadows of the trees stretched all the way up the mountainside, dappling it with darkness.

Again, Stas struggled to sit up. "No," he mumbled. "_Get _out . You."

"In a bit," she said, fiddling with the lock. _Damn_, she thought, _I used to be better at this_. But her lockpicking skills were rusty and so was the lock. Fiddle, fiddle, twist and turn. Nothing.

"Shura," Stas said again and his voice took on a new tone.

She knew that outside only a sliver of the sun's circle remained visible. "Yes, I feel it."

It was like the cave had gone electric. Energy was gathering, not quite crackling yet, but it would be soon.

It was becoming harder to breathe. Shura tried to keep her focus, to shut everything out as she fiddled with lock but the damned thing wouldn't wrench free, it was too rusty. She glanced at the soil below her feet, thought she saw a ripple.

"Shura…"

The girl ignored him. Beyond the walls of the mountain the sun sank out of sight. Its last rays lingered as a soft glow but it could no longer keep back the darkness. It was now officially night.

An arm broke the soil not ten feet from where they were.

_Lockpicking 101. Pick and tension wrench._

She worked with a hairpin and the tiny flat head screwdriver that twisted out of the corkscrew part of her swiss army knife as more limbs pushed free of the dirt.

_Pressure and __finesse._

Finesse was a tall order when bodies were emerging from the ground not a dozen paces from you. Bodies that projected hunger.

_Feel and sound._

How could she hear with all that blood pounding in her ears?

"Shura, they're awake."

_Pressure and finesse......._

She struggled to find the inner calm that she needed to do this. It wasn't easy, for her empathic bond with Stas was strong and panic was coming off him in waves.

"Crossbow," she hissed to buy time.

He knew were to find it and though he struggled, he managed to arm himself. "They're coming," he whispered.

_Feel and sound…….._

The only thing she heard was the crossbow going off and Stas struggling clumsily to reload it. The only thing she felt was the body that hit her sideways, an arrow sticking from its side. She felt it twitch and knew it hadn't been disabled completely, but she was a split second too late and it had grabbed her and fastened its teeth on her neck. She cried out in pain, cursing both her stupidity and the audacity of the damned creature. The only advantage to that situation was that vampires, especially newbies like this one, were like mosquitoes. Once they were latched on to a blood source, they were infinitely easier to swat. Struggling to stay calm, she let it gulp a couple of times and then, slipping a stake from her belt she drove it deep into the creature's chest with an uppercut. The vampire let out a scream and then suddenly she was free. She didn't bother to watch as it convulsed and slowly turned to ash. Staking had a slower effect on disintegration but who cared --- it was effective. Beside her Stas was trying to shoot the others. She didn't bother to look up and check how many others were coming either. Her neck hurt but she turned back to her task again. Lucky she hadn't dropped the pick and the hairpin. Her hands were shaking now and it took an enormous force of will to still the tremors.

_Pressure and finesse._

She centered all her energy on her fingers. Behind her another thud signaled her crossbow had taken another one down.

_Feel and sound. _

Shura heard the tiniest of clicks. It was the welcomest of sounds as she felt the pins in the lock slide into place and the plug rotate at last. The lock fell free and the chain loosened.

She was dragging Stas to his feet before she had another coherent thought.

"Up!" she hissed. "Up, damn you!"

"Behind you, Shura."

She whirled, sliding her sword from its sheath in the leg of her jeans even as she leaned back, propping Stas up against the wall with her own weight and shielding him at the same time. There were five of the creatures still moving forward. She could tell right away that they were all newborns --- no vampire ever radiated as much crazed hunger as a newborn. But because they were new, and because of the iron surrounding them, the vampires were sluggish, clumsy. Two even fell over and struggled to rise again. That didn't mean they couldn't do plenty of damage if they got their hands on you --- the proof was the blood trickling down the side of her neck. But it gave them a chance.

Behind her she could feel Stas sliding down the wall again. He fired the crossbow once more and the shot went wild. He groaned. She groaned.

_"Wise man say: he who hesitates is toast. "_

They kept coming. She would have to take them herself. She didn't have much time because she was losing blood fast. There was no chance to run.

_Shit on a stick !_

_* * * * * * *_

The sky was turning pink by the time Shura managed to shove Stas out of the hole onto the side of the mountain.

"Don't slide!" she said, grabbing at his leg as he began to slip down the slope. He was barely conscious and his dead weight dragged her out of the hole and down the slope with him. She began to swear. They were so going to break their necks…….

All at once she felt the rush of air. Something swooped out of the sky and caught her by the scruff of the neck, and Stas by the ankle. They were airborne before she could even register surprise. Trees whizzed by, hill and dale --- they were outrunning the sunrise. Then just as suddenly they were dumped unceremoniously on the ground. Stas groaned and Shura rolled instinctively to her feet. She stood there unsteadily and blinked. _Now _she registered surprise.

"For crying out loud Dominic, did you have to throw us down like that?"

The tall dragonseeker's face told her he was in no mood for humor. "You foolish, foolish child. I ought to…"

Aleksandra did not get to hear what he ought to do to her for suddenly the air exploded behind her and she whirled to see Nicolas materialize with an expression like thunder and an aura like walking death.

She took a step back, held up her hand as if to ward him off. "I'm fine! " she almost yelled at him even as she swayed on unsteady legs. It seemed the eyes boring into her made her wound throb and she pressed her hand to the raw skin. "I'm _fine," _she hissed again, taking wobbling steps back as Nicolas began to stride towards her. "Stay away!"

"Shut up," he growled and closed in on her.


	28. Chapter 28

Aleksandra knew there was something to be said about having the courage of your convictions. There was something to be said about having courage period. Something good. She was sure of it.

Except she couldn't think of anything right now because her ears were ringing from a tirade of disapproval of her convictions so colorful, so lengthy, so _loud _that nobody would need Carpathian supersenses to hear them in Brazil. Her mind was a little too fuzzy to retain all of it but the words "_what the +? were you thinking" _and an extended diatribe on the fine line between courage and foolhardiness (one she had allegedly crossed) had been the high points. Or low points, depending on your point of view. She couldn't get her tongue to function well enough to argue. Nicolas was on a roll.

We're alive aren't we? she wanted to yell. _Wise man say: 'End justify means.'_

Instead she sat there stupidly and listened in wonder as he ranted. And wondered why she listened. She made a half-conscious decision to chalk it up to the blood loss.

"You will drink, " he said for the umpteenth time. This jolted her out of her stupor.

"No. You know what that will do."

They both knew. It would strengthen the bond, this bond that neither of them wanted. Maybe seal it.

At last their eyes met, blue latched to brown, and Aleksandra almost took a step back. All her life she had relied on feel and thought, never on sight. She realized she had never even looked, _really looked_ at Nicolas. His aura would be recognizable to her in a roomful of people and his energy detectable miles away but her visual image of him was limited to dark hair and imposing height. For the first time ever, the color of his eyes registered in her brain. Deep brown, not like chocolate, more like rum. Dark but clear , the lashes so thick they outlined his eyes in black. Expressive eyes, the kind of eyes that made it unnecessary to probe for emotions or nuances in energy. Eyes that told her everything. Right now, however, they were telling her that he was royally pissed, a fact confirmed by the exasperation that had been vocalized by that generous mouth.

Aleksandra was now finding that looking into Nicolas' eyes was even more disconcerting than being in his head. Frustration warred with confusion and concern in his dark gaze and a thousand expressions chased each other across his chiseled features. Sight input was often misleading, which was why she never relied on it, but what she saw now on Nicolas' face, in his eyes, was so real, so _raw_ that it staggered her. He was more than disgruntled, he was seriously upset; he had been more than afraid for her he had been sick with terror. She had the grace to feel a little bit ashamed. But why such depth of emotion? They had escaped with their lives with minor injuries. Why this drama?

Even as she asked herself that Aleksandra knew. Just as they both knew that there was no way around this, that Nicolas was driven by an instinct that was beyond reason or logic. He wasn't going to let her get away and even Aleksandra acknowledged that. However, it didn't stop her from attempting to talk her way out of it.

"I am not drinking your blood. I'll go get some water, that will increase my blood volume and I'll be fine - leggo, Nicolas. Leave me alone!"

"_Drink!"_

He had her in a headlock now and because the adrenaline was draining away, Aleksandra was starting to feel the true effects of the bite. Nicolas was actually holding her up even as he offered her his bleeding wrist.

"I don't need it," she said, pushing it away. But even she was aware that her words were slurring now.

Nicolas said no more, only pressed his wrist to her lips. Blood touched her tongue, survival instinct took over as they both knew it would and Aleksandra began to drink. Her knees folded and Nicolas lowered them both carefully to the ground, leaning against a rock and propping her up against his chest. Aleksandra was vaguely aware of Nicolas murmuring encouragement, his lips moving against her temple. Her senses were filled with the feel, the scent and the taste of him. His blood flowing into her mouth, his heat surrounding her, his energy flowing into her. She tried to stop drinking, could not. Starved for so long, her body would not allow it for it was so depleted it had even begun to tap her life force to keep going.

With his free hand, Nicolas moved aside the collar of her shirt to look at her wound. It was nasty but it was bleeding only a little now. Bending his head and licked at it without further thought, letting his saliva heal the punctures, the tears. He heard Aleksandra's voice in his mind _"Nononono don't. Don't, Nicolas…."_

_"I have to."_

Firmly connected to her now in blood and mind. Nicolas understood what had been going on, how she had barely been staying alive and he cursed her stupidity. And his own. Dominic had been right - for all intents and purposes she was his lifemate and it was his responsibility to see to her wellbeing. No matter that she was infuriating, bullheaded….. brave and insanely loyal. With free access to her mind her motivation for going into that mountain alone in her condition became clear. She knew it had been Stas, whom she considered brother, who had been in trouble, and she hadn't even questioned the necessity of going to his aid. She hadn't considered not going, not for even a moment.

Nicolas found himself envying Stas her loyalty.

Connected to her now he was also suddenly aware of just how terrifyingly depleted she was. She had been right under his nose and he hadn't known. Pulling energy in from around her and when that wasn't enough tapping into her life force. Of all the insane , stubborn, infuriating….

_"When you're done feeding we're going to ground."_

Her reaction to that was so intense and so sudden that it took Nicolas by surprise. Aleksandra tore her mouth away from his arm and flung it from her. She didn't have the strength to get away from him physically, but his connection to her mind was instantly severed. To Nicolas it was like a physical blow and the initial fright was reminiscent of when his bond with Lara had been severed. He reached out instantly in panic - no the connection was still there. She had shut her mind to him in powerful reflex but her shields yielded slightly as he probed. She was sitting there swaying , unable to get away but feeling adamant about something. Nicolas surrounded her with his arms again, pressed his wrist to her lips once more and his panic eased as her shields melted with the flow of his blood into her mouth.

Aleksandra gave up and drank. Her hunger was like a living thing the blood like liquid life.

Feeling the girl yield, Nicolas relaxed a little. He didn't understand her reaction but suddenly caught an image in her mind - no, more a feeling than an image - of darkness, of being unable to move. The rich scent of earth and a stretching sense of time were woven deeply into the memory -yes it had been a memory. All at once he understood. _She had once been forced to go to ground._ Forced to stay there. He balked, appalled. Then suddenly it wasn't just his arms surrounding her anymore it was his whole being. Soothing the memory was all he could do now. There would be no more talk of going to ground, not after being privy to that dreadful piece of her past.

Nicolas shut his eyes. For weeks now he had been holding himself back, grateful that the girl had the strength to keep herself at arm's length despite the pull, and his control was worn paper thin. He cursed the fates that had brought them together this way. In another time, in another life he would have been happy, thankful, _proud _to call her mate. But ….

_Yes, _said a dry voice in his mind. _I know the but, Nicolas._

Aleksandra stopped drinking, and then licked once at his wrist to close the wounds. Nicolas' arms tightened in reflex. "Take more. You need it."

"I've had enough. Thank you." she added after a moment.. She shut her eyes at the feel of him pressing close against her back, his chin against her shoulder. Damn it but she hadn't the will to pull away, and the breath hissed through her teeth as he rubbed his cheek against hers in what could only be interpreted as a caress. She almost found the strength to bolt but then he was pulling away from her, turning her so he faced him. His hands came up to frame her face, but she could not meet his eyes, even when leaned his forehead against hers.

"Aleksandra," he whispered, shaking. He wanted to tell her something, could not. Truth was he didn't have to. With blood, fear and memory now between them it wasn't necessary.

"I know," she whispered back. "I know."

* * *

It wasn't much later that Aleksandra was lying on the ground under a tree, trying to get some rest . Her eyes were closed but sleep would not come.

Footsteps crunched dirt and twig. They stopped beside her.

"Isn't it past your bedtime, Dominic?"

The ancient dragonseeker's voice was droll."One of the advantages of being my age is that noone gets to tell you when to go to bed. Not even the sun."

Shura cracked an eye open. "So you're a daywalker?"

"Let's just say if I keep to the shadows I can pretty much stay up all day."

She gazed up at him a moment and then nodded. "Good for you," she said and shut her eyes once more.

"Not really. Staying up all day is overrated."

"So is staying up all night."

One corner of Dominic's mouth lifted in wry amusement. "Yes," he agreed. "You're right."

"Where's my brother, Dominic? Is he still alive or did you eat him?"

"Still alive. Jaguar meat is too tough to be enjoyable."

"Yeah we're both kind of sinewy aren't we? Wouldn't make much of a meal."

"Nevertheless you almost did. Make a meal, I mean. A vampire meal."

"Almost doesn't count."

"Doesn't it?"

The girl shrugged, her eyes still closed. "Dead is like pregnant. You either are or you're not. There's no almost."

"What a fascinating metaphor, Aleksandra."

Dominic sounded ever so slightly annoyed and that merited a peek. Aleksandra slitted her eyes open just a bit. Sure enough, Dominic was hovering over her, leaning against a tree his brows drawn so a deep furrow was over his nose.

"You don't care that you almost died?"

Aleksandra frowned. "I didn't. That's all I care about."

"You don't care that that what you did was foolish in the extreme and almost cost you your life or worse?"

She sat up, suddenly indignant. "Why was it foolish to go after my brother? "

"You should have waited, you impulsive little chit ! I would have gone with you. Or Nicolas would have."

"Nicolas would have chained me to a tree."

Dominic pursed his lips a bit. "You're probably right," he conceded.

"And I would've made him pay."

"You scared him half to death you know."

"Is it even proper to use that saying to refer to a Carpathian ? Literally or figuratively?"

"Proper or not, it's the truth." Dominic tilted his head. "Tell me little girl, haven't the two of you had enough of torturing yourselves yet? Of denying this lifebond of yours? Would it not be easier to just give in?"

"He doesn't want me, Dominic."

"Really?" The ancient dragonseeker's tone was dry. "The two of you have done a remarkable job trying to convince each other, and yourselves, that you don't want each other." He motioned eloquently with his hands. "It's really almost convincing, you know. _Almost."_

"It's not an act," Aleksandra said.

"With the sensitivity you have to the most minute nuances of energy, you expect me to believe that you bought it when he told you he thought you were an 'abomination' ? You expect me to believe you didn't know he was trying to talk himself out of claiming you right then and there?"

"He doesn't want. me. He blames me for this whole situation."

"_You _blame _yourself_. You think it is your fault. It's not. Nicolas and Lara had a bond that they didn't seal. In the strictest sense of the word they weren't bonded yet. That's what made them vulnerable to that disconnection. It was a fluke nothing more, Aleksandra."

"Nobody believes in flukes when I'm involved."

"Who cares what they believe?"

Aleksandra fixed her blue eyes on the older man and shook her head. "I don't understand why you keep…"

"Are you telling me you feel nothing for Nicolas?"

"Even if I did - the feelings aren't real, Dominic. Whatever feelings might be there, they can't be real. They're forced by this thing -"

"That is where you are extravagantly wrong, little girl. You are confusing cause and effect. The cause may be artificial, this bond you call a "thing", this connection. But the feelings are very real."

"They can't be! How can he go from having one woman be the center of his life to another in the blink of an eye? How could I possibly have instant feelings for someone I didn't even know existed?"

"But the feelings were not instant were they? Again you are confusing cause and effect. The connection was instant. But the feelings never are. The bond plants tendencies, inclinations. The rest is up to you."

"That is so not true. With the connection the other person is open to you, and…"

"Yes, it opens the other person to you. But it cannot force you to feel for that other person."

"But…"

"Stop trying to figure it out.!" For the first time since she had known him, Dominic sounded exasperated. "Stop trying to anticipate it like you do your opponents in battle! You need to accept that the bond itself is beyond you. Something you take on faith."

"But it is not beyond me."

The statement was so matter-of-fact, so devoid of arrogance that Dominic found himself shaking his head. "You still want to sever it? You hate being bonded to him that much?"

"He hates me that much."

"No, he doesn't. Oh he wants to but - he doesn't. You know that in your heart Aleksandra."

"There's another person involved."

"That is unfortunate, yes. She has no fault in this and no, she does not deserve it. But perhaps her loss needs to be accepted as just that. A loss."

"I thought you, of all people…."

"Why, because I am ancient?" Dominic challenged her. " Of the old ways? Tis true that in the olden days everyone was more accepting of their fate. This finding yourself and figuring things out was not a popular pastime." Suddenly his eyes twinkled and he chucked her affectionately under the chin. "But change is good, little girl. A race needs those who push the boundaries of beliefs and conventions and things that we take for granted if it is to evolve."

"I have no desire to be the vessel of evolution for a race," Aleksandra said. " I just want to be left alone to go my own way."

"But that is exactly what you have been doing, is it not? You are too honest and too true to yourself for that not to be so. Without wanting to you have pushed boundaries, planted questions, made all the old timers think!"

"I make them cringe is what I do."

"That, too. But it is a good thing. This old timer hasn't felt so alive in so very long, little girl. I have you to thank for that."

The girl sighed and looked away.

"You are wondering why I wish you to consider letting this bond stand."

"That among other things."

"I have nothing against Lara. She has no fault in this. I have nothing against her being bonded to Nicolas. But that's just it. She is not bonded to Nicolas. You are."

"But I can…"

"I know what you can do. But remember the last time you did it, it did not result in the bond reforming between Lara and Nicolas. What makes you think it will this time?"

"I don't know. They can do it differently , a blood exchange, he can claim her…"

"He can't claim her if they're not bonded. And even if they were - the blood exchange, they can't seal it because of her work with the extremophiles."

Aleksandra was quiet for a moment. "There may be other solutions to that if they would only see it."

"It doesn't change anything Aleksandra! My fear is that even if you break your bond they may never get theirs back."

"That will be their problem now won't it?"

"No it will be everyone's problem. For then it opens up a great many possibilities about what will happen to Nicolas. And to you."

"Dimitri's bond is broken and he's fine! "

"For now."

Aleksandra fell silent.


	29. Chapter 29

"Don't think that just because you can do something that you should do it," Dominic said.

The girl was frowning now. "What did you expect me to do, sit around and watch my brother turn vampire?"

"You didn't even consider the risks, you little fool!"

"So what? It worked, didn't it?"

"You have an amazing disregard for your own welfare. Have you no instinct for self-preservation ?"

"What should I preserve myself for? I'm not like that dude Xavier who covets immortality. Immortality is overrated. I wouldn't mind dying for a good cause."

Dominic actually gaped at that. "That is truly obscene coming from someone your age," he said.

"I don't want to get to your age. I don't even want to get to my brother's age. All that effort all that living and for what? He held out for a girl who didn't want him, who refused to have anything to do with him, who brought nothing but guilty feelings and dark thoughts, who wouldn't even save him from turning vampire when she was the only one who could. I don't regret risking it all so my brother wouldn't turn. Plus there was the added benefit of cutting him off from that rotten excuse for a mate. I'm not sorry. And you can't make me be sorry."

"I'm trying to make you see reason!"

"What reason, whose reason? I don't live by your rules, so don't judge me by them."

"No matter what you say, at least some of the rules do apply to you as well, Aleksandra. That life bond you have attached to you is very real and it is getting stronger by the day. Do I really have to tell you that? It will be very dangerous to try and break it now, especially after you have exchanged blood ---- no don't bother to deny it. _Let the bond stand._ It would sheer asininity to sever it now."

"He doesn't want me, Dominic. How many times do I have to tell you that? You think you understand but you don't. You have not been inside his head like I have. This … thing…. may be triggering feelings but they are feelings he doesn't want. He's very clear about that."

Dominic spoke through gritted teeth. "I should just bash both your heads in. Save you a great deal of suffering."

"I'd rather suffer than have to spend the rest of my sorry life bonded to someone who doesn't want me. Someone who'll always be thinking of someone else."

Dominic opened his mouth to reply but just then Stas ambled up, still dragging his feet, his eyes at half-mast."Well look what the cat dragged in," he said before he could help it.

"The cat didn't drag him. I did," Aleksandra put in drily and lay back down on the mossy ground. Stas stretched out beside her, lying down close enough so their heads and shoulders touched. Dominic watched as their auras blended with a seamlessness that could only be seen among those whose lives had been very closely intertwined. He found himself filled with envy --- he had never been that close to anyone, not even his family. Even among bonded Carpathians it was rare to see this degree of connection. This close together their auras were as one --- he suspected that they had been bred close to each other, certainly they had been raised together, fought together. He could almost picture them as cubs, puppy and kitten curled together, and the thought almost made him smile. Seeing them like that, he realized they actually did resemble each other physically, a fact that wasn't initially obvious because their coloring was so different. The thought of the disaster they had so narrowly averted that night sobered him. But just as he opened his mouth to say something about it Aleksandra cut him off.

"Can we continue the lectures later? We're bushed."

Dominic's eyes narrowed but he did close his mouth. After a moment he said "I'm going to ground. If anything…"

"Sweet dreams, Dominic."

The ancient dragonseeker nodded slowly and walked away. It wasn't long before Stas broke the silence.

"Do you think he suspects?" he asked Aleksandra.

"Probably," the girl replied, not opening her eyes. "But as long as he doesn't interfere it's fine."

"By the way, thanks for getting me out."

"Sure. Whatever it was they gave you, is it out of your system yet?"

"Pretty much. Shura?"

"What?"

"Do you get the feeling like we got off too easy?"

Shura's eyes opened. It was a moment before she replied. "Yes," she said softly.

Stas sat up, wide awake now. "It was obviously planned and they could have completely trapped us."

Shura nodded, looking up at him.

"Why didn't they then?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Testing us maybe? To see if we're worth the trouble?"

"That doesn't make sense."

"Got a better reason?"

"No," he admitted.

Shura sat up, as well. "Doesn't really matter now. Doesn't change what we have to do."

Stas looked at her. "It would if we knew we might be playing into their hands."

"I don't see that we have any options right now. Aside from running."

"Won't do any good. We may have killed the one that bit you, but because the minion took your blood it means the master has a lock on you now."

Shura regarded him gravely. "But what the master doesn't know is that it also means _I_ have a lock on _him_."

* * *

"Blade."

"Check."

"Fire."

"Check."

"Escape route."

"Check."

"Crossbow."

"Check."

"Arrows for crossbow."

"Check."

"Gall to actually shoot puny arrow at master vampire about to rip your throat out."

Stas' lips curled upwards and it was a moment before he could answer. "Check."

Shura turned to look at him. "You sure?'

"About whether I can shoot the arrow, yes. About whether it will do any good in the grand scheme of things, I don't know."

Shura nodded slowly. He turned to meet her gaze and his light brown eyes gleamed under a wayward lock of hair. "I'm with you on this," he said quietly, earnestly.

"I know," she replied, just as quietly. "But you don't have to be. This is my choice, Stas. My fight. You can walk away and I won't think less of you for it."

Stas rolled his eyes. "Like I'd leave you to do this alone."

"I don't want you to feel obligated."

"Like you felt obligated to save my ass?"

"You can buy me a candy bar in return. I'll handle this by myself."

"Not happening, Shura."

"Then you need to be in it all the way. No half-baked shit, Stas --- that will get us both killed. Or worse."

The boy nodded slowly. "I'm in."

"You do know why I'm doing this, right?"

He nodded again. "Same reason I am. You don't want to be looking over your shoulder the rest of your life."

"We have to end it here. Or we _will _have to look over our shoulders the rest of our lives. However short they may be."

Her brother gazed thoughtfully at her. "You sure you want to do this with just the two of us?"

Shura nodded.

"You don't trus this Dominic character? Or Nicolas?"

"It's not exactly a trust issue. Nicolas will want to hide me in a corner. Dominic --- I don't know if he can manage to let me fight without interfering. We've never fought with him before so we won't be effective with him. " She frowned at Stas. "Why am I telling you this? You already know it. You know I only trust my back to the pack. Same as you."

Stas nodded. "It won't be pretty."

"Since when is pretty a requirement in a fight? _Wise man say : end justify means."_"

The boy's lip curled.

"So are you in?"

"I'm in."

The two of them stood side by side and stared down at a patch of ground where the flowers had shriveled and the grass had died. The stench rising was unmistakable to their ultra sensitive noses. They were both silent a moment and then Shura murmured. "It's going to be a long night."


	30. Chapter 30

They slid down the side of the mountain and hit the ground running.

_How many? _Shura called to her brother. _How many, Stas?_

_Twelve, maybe thirteen._

_Shit on a stick! That leaves way too many to go._

Shura felt rather than saw Stas nod as they sprinted back to the grove of trees. Their trap had worked – but not quite well enough. Piercing the master with iron nails as he lay immobile in the last rays of the sun and dragging him, palpably furious but unable to move or shift, back into the cave where they had held Stas, had helped them lure a dozen or so of the vampires into the iron rich chamber. They, too, were unable to shift and if not easy prey, they were easier than they would have been out in the open.

In there the battle had been tactical, and the two of them had made good use of narrow tunnels and dead ends to keep the monsters coming at them one by one rather than en masse. They had killed at least a dozen in there and had the bruises and wounds to show for it. But there were at least three dozen more out here.

It was now full dark. The air was still and stifling, thick with the promise of rain. Stas and Shura ran for cover. Attack from front back or side could be thwarted, attack from the sky would give the attacker too much of an advantage. In the caves sword and staff had been sufficient, out here they would have need of projectile weapons.

"Duck!" called out Shura from behind Stas. He dropped to the ground without question or thought, stayed down for the length of a heartbeat, just enough time for her to release an iron-tipped, beechwood-shafted arrow from her crossbow and (hopefully) into the chest of an unfortunate vampire who had crossed their path. He was rolling to his feet even as he heard the telltale thud of Shura's arrow meeting its mark and the familiar hiss of disintegrating vampire. Wolf-eyes were better than jaguar for aiming in the dark. They kept running. Two seconds later he was whirling to toss his weapon straight at an adversary leaping from the trees behind them. Jaguar sense was better for throwing blind --- Shura knew that and had already dropped to a crouch to leave his weapon a clear path. As soon as the vamp was down she was upon the creature with her sharpened staff. She then spared a moment to extract his weapon from the gooey remains and made a face at him.

"Why do you insist on using throwing stars? They're so _messy_!"

"Throwing knives are expensive, Shura," he responded drily. "These were gifts."

"Uhhuh, and just how much chocolate did you have to sneak in to the blacksmith to get these 'gifts'?"

* * *

Back in the shadows, a great black beast with massive haunches and colossal fangs raised its hackles and growled deep in his throat. A long-fingered hand came down on its great head.

_Not yet, _said the voice in its mind.

And so the beast waited.

* * *

Battle lesson number one: courage was not the absence of fear. It was simply the ability to function despite it. Fear could be positive, it kept you alert, kept the adrenaline going. However, it could not be allowed to take over. Not under any circumstances.

For a moment there, it had certainly threatened to take over, Shura thought, as they lay silently in the bushes, waiting. When they had dug the master vampire out of his resting place it had been too close to dark, too close to his time. He hadn't been able to move yet but he was conscious and there was contact between them through the blood-lock he had on her. Though the master's mind had been less strong than she expected, it was far more slimy, far more disgusting. The problem wasn't that he had been pulling too hard to be contained, it was that she had _wanted _to let go, wanted to break the contact. She knew she would not be able to rid herself of the slimy residue of his mind. It was not the kind that you could wash away. She had shuddered and the only thing that had kept her going was Stas' voice inside her head.

_Steady_ , he had said, and his presence had given her the fortitude to hang on as the master burrowed into her mind, his grip growing stronger as the sunlight faded outside. She had had to hang on until the others rose and followed their master into the caves. Lucky for them that they had learned the fallacies of Carpathian beliefs about vampires early on, Shura thought. The common belief was that vampires did not band together --- it wasn't always true. Their natural tendency was to strike out on their own, yes, but the master vampire, the original "maker", always had a hold on those of his bloodline --- whether he cared to use that hold was another story. Because one of his line had taken her blood this particular master had a hold on her, but it was tenuous and temporary, and Shura was well-experienced in turning the tables and using it to her advantage. It had actually helped them find his resting place. It had also lured the others to them. But not _all_ of the others, unfortunately. There were far too many wandering around and they would have to hunt down every single one. In addition to that, something was niggling at Aleksandra's mind, something that made her very uncomfortable: _Where in hell was the mage?_

_Three o'clock _came Stas' voice inside her head again, startling her. Unlike other voices, however, his was not an intrusion. His voice and Dimitri's were part of her, she couldn't remember being without them. And though it was often easier to fight alone and not have concern for another niggling at your back, she was glad for Stas' company. Jaguar fought cold, unlike wolves. She was more wolf in that way, hot blooded in battle. They balanced each other nicely, they always had.

_Ready, Shura?_

_Yes. There are three of them. They can smell us bleeding._

_I see two. _

_One's trying to hide. I'll go for him first._

_Okay, the two shouldn't be a problem. _

_There's something else. Behind us….._

_It'll have to wait. On three, one, two…_

They sprang out on cue, as together as if they had been arrows shot from the same bow at the same moment. They took different directions, however, Stas going for the two monsters that had made themselves visible coming out of the shelter of the trees, Shura leaping on the one hidden in the brush. His low center of gravity made him practically impossible to knock over, so she leapt on top of him instead, driving the sharpened cleats of her iron-spiked shoes (the Adidas David Beckham Lion Predator model in midnight black) into the creature's back. Shura was a stickler for the right shoes, especially for fighting, and there was no denying the double advantage of having iron spiked shoes (extra grip while running, extra sting for kicking). Of course you had to be on the right surface --- they had been hell on her feet in certain rocky areas of the caves, but out here they were genius. However, with the razor-sharp cleats stuck into the back of a vampire who was getting to his feet, staying upright was becoming a challenge and it took considerable leg power to disengage them and flip to her feet before she fell rather ungainly to the ground. The cleats took some vampire flesh with them and she dodged a spray of acidic vamp blood. He rushed her in a rage of pain, but that was not necessarily a bad thing --- vampires were not the kind who fought better when he was mad. She dodged, the one thing always in her mind when fighting vampire was that they could not ever be allowed to get a hold of her. It was hard enough to fight them, if they got their hands on you it became infinitely harder. The vamp rushed again and she dropped and rolled to one side. He was still deadly fast --- the iron spikes in her shoe hadn't done much damage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stas tumble out of reach of one of his opponents even as the other rushed him from the opposite side. A kick with his own iron-spiked shoe sent the second one flying but he wouldn't be disabled for long. Instinctively the two of them rolled towards each other and as they got to their feet they were standing back-to-back, facing down the three vampires now circling them. They were both bleeding from various wounds and cuts and the smell of blood had their opponents slavering. In tandem, they reached back for the wooden staffs they carried strapped to their backs. Not the blunt ones they used for form-practice, oh no, these had additional anti-vampire touches : an iron spike on one end and the other wooden end sharpened to a razor point. Two of the vampires rushed Shura. Both had earlier been spiked with iron so neither would be pulling any surprises by suddenly shifting, at least not for a while. She swung left and caught one in the belly with the side of her staff and then nearly broke her arm as she swung right and met the other one's hard head. The jarring impact went down her arm and into her shoulder and she cussed in pain. Behind her Stas was having his own problems with the one vampire who had not been disabled , and thus had the power of flight and superspeed. It was toying with him now, rushing him and stopping just out of reach, dropping from above to slap his face and hurtle away, a predator playing with its food. It was moving too fast to hit with any projectile, and Stas didn't have enough arrows or throwing stars to spare one on anything but a sure hit. Shura was covering his back but she was struggling with two adversaries. So they decided on a time-tested tactic.

_One, two, three ---- _on the prearranged count they changed positions and suddenly facing new opponents surprised their adversaries just enough to give them a splitsecond advantage. It was enough time for Shura to send her staff flying, wooden point forward into the chest of the vampire who had stopped for the minutest of moments, hovering just above her, and for Stas to swing his own staff and cut into the neck of another surprised vampire with a slicing sweep of the spike end. It gurgled and choked on its own blood. and Stas swung again to completely decapitate the creature. To his surprise, the third one up and ran away.

He turned to Shura, who stood there gaping. Behind her was the body of the other vampire, just as dead, with a smoking hole in its chest where she had incinerated its heart. "He ran!" she said to him, dumbfounded. "What the hell ---- they _never_ run!"

"I think he's newly turned. Doesn't matter --- we have to go after him."

"Wait! What if it's a trap?"

"We'll just have to keep our eyes open --- not one left standing, remember?"

Shura hesitated and then nodded.

* * *

The night was cloudy, but for a moment the moon peeked from behind the clouds, illuminating the countryside. Its light was so bright that it was almost like daytime, but without the color.

Two figures hovering in the still air above the trees observed silently as a chase ensued below them. One person, on foot, being pursued by two. Whoever it was was fast, and strong --- if clumsy--- crashing through the undergrowth with no apparent concern for bodily damage. The pursuers were faster, however, and far more agile, leaping over rocks and dodging odd branches without once stumbling or missing a step. In a move so coordinated it seemed almost unreal the two split up and, increasing their speed, ran out in a curved path, giving their prey a wide berth and overtaking him, running clear of the trees. They converged again in the little clearing just beyond and when the sorry creature they were chasing blundered out of the shelter of the copse, they were already kneeling in wait and unleashed a pair of arrows straight into its chest.

"Impressive," said one of the hovering observers as they watched the creature go down. "My compliments."

"I can't take all the credit," replied the other.

The two on the ground were too intent on their task to notice.

* * *

_author's note:_

_Thank you yet again to everyone who has taken the time to read and apologies for the late update. _

_Thank you also to all those who have reviewed (I haven't been able to reply to everyone personally) --- I really appreciate all the comments and encouraging words. To answer Manda's question "malynkaya" is a derivative of the Russian word 'malinki", which means "small" (also I hope you did okay in your finals despite taking the time to read). The character's real nickname is Shura, which is (supposedly) a Russian diminutive for Aleksandra._

_About this last chapter I have never written a battle scene before so feel free to comment and you don't have to be nice! The fight is not over yet so if you have suggestions I would also be glad to hear them._

_Again, thanks for reading I hope_ _you enjoyed this last installment_


	31. Chapter 31

Shura was tired. Pausing a moment, she dragged her sleeve across her brow. It was past midnight and they had been hunting for hours. She had fed that day but the long period she had gone without had taken its toll anyway --- she was half a step slower than usual, resulting in her being a great deal more bruised and bloodied than she usually was after a hunt, and, even more humiliating, she was out of breath. To top that all off, it wasn't even over.

She and Stas had split up a while back --- although they had sworn not to --- but there had just been too many of the vamps and they had lost track of each other. She had a vague idea of where he was but she wasn't going to risk trying to talk to him --- the slightest distraction could mean death or worse if she caught him at the wrong moment. She couldn't understand where the vampires were all coming from --- yes they had lost count of how many they had killed but surely they had gotten all of them by now? There had never been this many together in one place at one time. Not ever.

Her head snapped to one side as she registered the presence of another one to her right. She began to run again. The thing gave chase. Keeping as much energy in reserve as she could, Shura led it on on foot, choosing not to waste her strength shapeshifting or taking to the air. By the time she got to her goal, a little gully where her back and sides would be protected and the enemy could only come from the front, she turned to finally stand her ground and face it down. It had no mind really, everything was a complete blur. That could only mean it was newly turned, probably newly risen. It was huge, it was new, and it was very hungry, and that made it no less dangerous for being so mindless. It attacked and Shura made the mistake of meeting its momentum. Her sword pierced but the impact shot through her arm and down her back like an electric shock. The creature howled, impaled, and then made a grab for her. Shura sidestepped at the same time making a stab with the wooden stake in her hand. The stake met its mark but her head hit an outcropping of rock and she saw stars for a moment. Through the stars she saw another figure approaching--- or it could have been three or ten, based on the fact that she was seeing about twenty fingers on each hand. She shook her head to clear it.

She was then suddenly vaguely aware of yet another presence behind her, a body coiling to leap. She was not too fuddled to duck but she did so clumsily and toppled to the ground. She tried to roll to her feet to face this new adversary but she hit her head again instead and fell flat on her back, blinked at the stars a moment, vaguely registering the thuds and sounds of a fight, a thin wail of pain. Were her opponents fighting over her? Over the right to drain her blood? She attempted to rise and suddenly blinked. A great ugly black face was hovering upside down over hers, the eyes glowing ruby red in the darkness. The creature made a guttural noise deep in its throat and its drool dripped straight into her face.

_Oh_, Shura thought. _Shit._

* * *

Somewhere west of his sister, Stas was having his own problems. He had been doing well until he'd made the mistake of running into open ground where his adversaries then pounced on the opportunity to surround him. Now he was at the center of a deadly pinwheel attack, facing five of the vampires all at once. He fought down the panic that would surely be the death of him and forced himself to look for options. Were there any? He wasn't holding his breath that it would be like in the movies and his opponents would attack one by one. Even as he thought that, two of the creatures closed in on him with blinding speed. He ducked, using his spear to impale the third one --- the one that had leapt, unseen from behind. The first two collided clumsily, but were close enough so that when he rolled away one grabbed him by the ankle. He scrabbled for a handgrip on the ground, and then as he tried to pull free he suddenly found himself staring at a pair of feet. Feet encased in the most beautiful boots he had ever seen. Good Italian leather, he registered crazily. Stas lifted his head to look the newcomer in the face even as he noticed more man-shapes falling from the sky.

_Oh,_ he thought. _Shit._

* * *

Still lying on the ground Shura stared up at the slavering, growling beast whose saliva was dripping into her face. She should have been terrified but somehow she was not. Suddenly, she blinked up at the fearsome creature.

"Boris?" she said suddenly. "Is that my baby dog?"

* * *

"Is this normal wolf behavior?" asked one observer of the other. They watched as the huge black beast put his great paws on the slender girl's shoulders in a parody of a bear hug and nuzzled his great head against her cheek. The girl laughed.

"No," his companion answered in disgust as the enormous wolf then promptly rolled over to have his belly scratched. Shura obliged and laughed as his leg thumped. "It's not normal at all. This wolf in particular, is a killing machine."

"Very strange. He doesn't seem at all like a killing machine."

"He's making a complete fool of himself." The second observer sighed in resignation. "His only excuse is that he slept in her bottom drawer as a cub and she would feed him cookies all day."

* * *

"I would know your bad breath anywhere, wouldn't I, poopsie pie?" Shura said to the great ugly beast who instantly went into a fit of cavorting like a puppy. She looked up to find Dimitri standing there, his arms folded, shaking his head in total disgust.

"This is not respectable," he said.

The great wolf had the grace to look just a tiny bit sheepish. But then Shura reached out to scratch his ears again and he promptly rolled on his back to have his belly scratched once more. Dimitri raised his eyes to the heavens.

"What are you doing here, Dima?," she asked mildly, bending over to oblige her former pet with a belly rub.

"What do you think?"

"I know Stas didn't call you and I know I didn't so who did?"

"That would be me," said another voice, and a second tall figure came out of the underbrush.

"Oh," Shura said, not a little sourly. "It's you."

"Well now, bratling," said Dominic Dragonseeker. "You didn't expect me to skip out on all the fun did you?"

* * *

Stas blinked stupidly as a whirlwind of battle churned around him. Unknown to him his mouth was unflatteringly agape ---- not so much at the spectacle of the battle but at the fact that he, for some yet-unfathomable reason, was not in the middle of it. Blood flew and bodies thunked, coming into contact with ground, rock and each other. It was not a lengthy battle but quite a spectacular one and had he not been so utterly confounded Stas would have enjoyed it. Then suddenly it was over, as quickly as it had begun, and the three figures who had dropped out of the sky approached him slowly.

"I'm not certain this was such a good idea," said the one who had peeled him off the ground. The one with the Roberto Boticelli boots. "Seeing as you're the one my mate's sister continues to have disturbing dreams about, maybe I should have left you to your fate."

Stas stared at him, completely clueless as to what he was talking about. He knew this man --- yes had met him before he was sure, but what in hell was he talking about? His mate's sister? Dreams? Maybe he was just tired but he wasn't reading the guy very well. Was he mad? Or not? Friend? Or foe? Just because he and his companions had wiped out the vampires attacking Stas didn't necessarily mean the former. He turned his gaze to the other two. All of the newcomers wore different versions of the same face (sort of like being at an Elvis convention, Stas thought crazily), dark with chiseled features --- they were obviously related. Ah yes he remembered now where he had seen these three tall men before. He had met them in their home in Brazil on that fateful trip but back then they had not acted like warriors. Stas was terrible with names but he did remember their family name. He knew he was facing three of the de la Cruz brothers. And he was betting that the tallest of them, the one whose brow was creased the most with concern, could only be the infamous Nicolas.

The tall man confirmed it himself by grabbing Stas by the collar and growling "Where in hell is my mate?"


	32. Chapter 32

"Your mate?" Stas' brows lifted and he spoke softly, serious now. "Interesting choice of words."

Nicolas let him go abruptly. His expression said that he had startled himself with his own choice of words. Nevertheless the concern creasing his brow quickly returned.

"Where is Aleksandra? And don't tell me you haven't seen her because I can smell her blood on you."

"Even if I did know you'd still need to give me a good reason to tell you."

Nicolas bared his teeth and would have gone for him had his brothers not grabbed him by the arms.

"Let me, _irmăo,_" said the one with the designer boots. Stas still couldn't remember his name. He stood his ground as the older man approached him.

"Listen, _menino,_" the man said to him with an aura of great patience. "If you still haven't figured out that it's in your best interests to tell my brother where he can find Aleksandra then you may have a problem. Remember you have been causing my mate's sister some disturbing dreams and my mate some anxious moments because of it and consequently I am not inclined to be charitable to you."

Stas frowned. "What in hell are you talking about?"

"My mate's sister? Ginny? Thirteen and followed you around like a puppy when you were in Brazil?"

Rafael sighed at the boy's blank face and completely confounded expression. He truly did not know what Rafael was talking about.

"Never mind. Tell us where Aleksandra is."

"I don't know."

"Why don't I believe you?"

The boy shrugged don't carishly. "Your problem, not mine."

"No actually it is _our_ problem. Because my brother has been frantic for the better part of the evening and if we don't find her soon he will get very angry. You won't like him when he's angry."

Stas looked him straight in the eye and the slight derisive curl of his lip told Rafael that he didn't give a flying f__k. The older man sighed again. _Children these days._

* * *

"We've been observing you," Dominic was saying. "Hell of a show you and your brother put on tonight --- clean, efficient, deadly. Fifty-seven to zero the final score. I was quite impressed."

The girl rolled her eyes and turned back to her former pet who was sprawled flat on his back enjoying a belly rub. The beast's face, hideously scarred and twisted from being caught in a trap as a cub, wore a look of complete and utter adoration. "It wasn't for show," she replied quietly. "And that's not the final score. There are more of them milling around."

"It's the final score for you," Dimitri said in a tone that brooked no contention. "You've had enough for one night. We'll clean up the stragglers."

Shura clenched her teeth to keep from snapping something in response, and then felt rather than saw her brother come up behind her as she stroked Boris' fur. Then his hand was on the back of her head, ruffling her hair. She winced suddenly as he unwittingly touched the knot left behind by her contact with a rock earlier that evening.

"Sorry," Dimitri said, crouching before her. He winced himself as he probed the bump with gentle fingers. "My word you took a hell of a whack. Are you sure you don't have a concussion? How many fingers?" he asked, holding his hand up in front of her face.

"Seventy-three,' Shura replied sourly and slapped away his hand. "Quit it, Dima."

Her brother sighed and leaned over to kiss her brow. "Stay put for twenty minutes. That's all I ask." He rose and eyeballed the black wolf who was still on his back, humongous paws in the air, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. "You," he said. "Muster some dignity and get yourself together." The beast rolled over and looked up at him, its puppyish whimper incongruous with its ferocious face and bloody muzzle. "Stay put the both of you." He said to them and then turned pointedly to the wolf. "Sit on her if you have to." Boris whined and put his head on Shura's lap.

"Very interesting parenting strategies you have," Dominic observed as he and Dimitri took to the air.

"I'm open to suggestions," the younger man growled.

Dominic very wisely left it at that.

* * *

When at last the cleanup was over, one by one the males found their way to the little copse where Dimitri had left his sister. Aleksandra was curled up against the great black wolf, fast asleep. The beast's eyes glowed red in the darkness as the men came closer and one in particular approached the sleeping girl.

Tense as a drawn bow, Nicolas moved slowly, mindful of the animal that lay in watch. _Lay in watch_, yes, he was certain of that. There was no threat to the girl from the wolf but the same could not be said of him. At a loss he paused a moment, not entirely sure what he would do if the creature put up a fight. To his surprise, the great beast lowered it eyes and head, a deferential gesture recognizable to him as he sometimes took the form of a wolf and knew their ways. Nevertheless it startled him.

Noticing it, Stas and Dimitri exchanged glances. Dominic spoke up. "The beast is loyal to her and acknowledges your bond," he said, "even if you don't."

A muscle jumped in Nicolas' jaw. Almost despite himself he bent and laid his hand against the girl's cheek. All the rage and fear seemed to go out of him. The action, made to make sure she was alive and breathing, turned into a caress, a gesture so achingly tender Dominic had to look away. _Damnation,_ the ancient dragonseeker thought to himself, he had almost blushed.

The moment didn't last, however, for the girl came awake with almost rude abruptness and her tripwire reflexes had her on her feet before she was even fully awake. 'What???--- I'm up. I'm up! Lemme at them!," she mumbled, fists lifting to battle stance.

"There's nobody left to fight, Aleksandra," Dominic said drily. "You can put your fists down now."

She blinked, still half asleep and swayed groggily on her feet. Stas' hand shot out to grab her by the collar, steadying her. Nicolas' reached out a steadying hand as well but she shied away from his touch and almost fell over. Stas' fist tightened on the collar of her shirt, almost lifting her off the ground.

Shura rubbed vigorously at her eyes to clear them, not knowing it made her look for all the world like an exhausted child. She blinked, taking in the people standing directly before her and a frown creased her brow. "Elvis convention," she said before she even knew what she was saying. She was staring at the three tall dark lookalike men who seemed to be weaving in and out of her still-unsteady gaze.

"My thoughts exactly," muttered Stas under his breath.

It was Nicolas and two of his brothers, she realized eventually. "Stas," she whispered, as she felt the hand behind her neck. "Are you holding me up?"

"Yes. Can you stand yet?"

He lowered her slightly but her knees immediately folded.

"Guess not," she mumbled, humiliated. She was always like this after a hunt --- she should never have allowed herself to fall asleep.

"I got you," he said quietly, steadying the hand that had her by the scruff of her neck. His stance was so casual that nobody would have noticed he was actually holding her upright.

"What's everyone doing here? " she asked.

"Cleaning up after you, _bonequinha brava, _" said one of the brothers. Manolito if she remembered right. "There were a few stragglers but nevertheless the two of you did an outstanding job with this nest."

Shura blinked. "Thanks," she said after a moment. 'I think. But what are you all doing here?"

"We need to talk, Aleksandra," Nicolas said softly. "I mean really talk."

"Nicolas, I promise I'll take care of it," the girl said tiredly. "Just let me sleep a bit, okay? Give me a few hours and then I'll take care of it ---- you won't have to endure another day tied to me. I _promise_. Just give me ---"

"That's not what I mean," he gritted through clenched teeth. He moved next to her and Stas glanced at Dimitri, who was all too obviously keeping tenuous control of himself. He still did not trust this Nicolas character but Dimitri appeared strangely willing to let things play out so Stas lowered his grip a little, letting Shura try to get her feet under her.

All at once the world went black.

* * *

It seemed to Stas that he was being swirled through a vortex --- a vortex of nothing, no light no sound no _air………. _ he couldn't see hear or even feel anything physical and the only thing that kept him from freaking out was the touch of his sister's mind somewhere close by.

_Shura_, he thought, for he had no mouth with which to speak,_ Shura_…..

* * *

"Where are they?" Rafael was saying. "What in hell happened?"

Dominic bent over the spot where the two youngsters had been standing only a moment before. Now there was only thin air. He saw the black wolf sniff at the spot and then raise his muzzle into the air, growling softly.

"You smell it, too," the ancient dragonseeker said to the fearsome beast. "You're right, boy. It's magick."

* * *

All at once it seemed to Stas that he was thrown --- no, _sucked _with great force, sucked out of the nothingness, back into the world. The sensation was one of exploding back into his own body, of all the splintered fragments of himself coming back together in a sudden sickening instant of light and screaming sound and, yes, pain. Someone groaned deeply and it took him a moment to realize it was him.

"Finally," said a long-suffering voice, deep, melodious. "You two have led us a merry chase."

When he could, Stas cracked an eye open. A slender man of indistinguishable age, pale haired and pale-eyed, was looking down at him. At _them. _He realized belatedly that Shura was groaning beside him. "You have wiped out your entire generation you know that don't you?," the man said, his tone droll. "How ironic is it that you two rejects wipe out the rest of what was to be the master race?"

* * *

_Author's note: _

_thank you for reading and apologies for the cliffhanger. again this isn't an attempt to drag it out--- I just cannot write all at once. to slynn64 some of stas' and shura's past is described in chapters 20-21 and 24-25. I know it's easy to lose track of the story if something was explained way back because it happens to me, too! I hope everyone bears with me til the end of the ride – not too much longer to go. please don't hesitate to let me know if something is unclear or gets way too confusing I will be glad for any input that can go into improving the telling of this story. thank you again to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited etc. I really appreciate it._


	33. Chapter 33

When he could, Stas cracked an eye open. They were in what seemed to be a cavern. An unfamiliar-familiar figure was standing a little way away, hovering over a pile on the floor that he suddenly recognized as his sister.

"I was hoping they would be able to bring you in," the stranger/not-stranger was saying to the person on the floor. He was tall, thin, all angles and paleness --- pale eyes pale hair, pale clothes…" so I wouldn't need to waste so much magick transporting you here. But no, you just couldn't make things easy for anyone, could you?"

There was no response but Stas thought he saw Shura stir. Suddenly he heard a groan and for a moment he wondered if it had been himself but it came again from the opposite side of the room. The blond figure turned and a look of pure annoyance crossed his face.

"My word you continue to be annoyingly unpredictable, Aleksandra. Look what you yanked along with you!"

Stas struggled to a sitting position, holding his pounding head. As he looked acros the cavern he saw a long form curled on the floor in a position of great pain. The blond man nudged the body with a booted foot. "Nicolas de la Cruz," he said, disgust in his voice. "How trite that you, too, are here at the end."

de la Cruz? Stas' addled brain managed to register some surprise. But not enough to stop him from crawling over to where Shura was stirring feebly. He helped her to a sitting position and they slumped against each other, effectively propping each other up. Their minds instinctively reached for each other, seeking comfort and support as they had done all their lives. But there was a third presence there and he felt his sister reach outwards reflexively through the bond-line attached to her. Normally the third person was Dimitri, but this time it was different. Stas registered Shura's relief as she realized Nicolas was functional.

"How touching," the blond man sneered. "But working together won't help you this time. It's the end of the line, children."

"Leave them alone."

"You're hardly in any shape to be telling me what to do, de la Cruz."

Stas couldn't see Nicolas very well from where he was slumped on the floor, but through Shura he registered a surprising lethargy.

_Iron, _his sister said suddenly inside his head. _We're in the iron caves. It's affecting Nicolas._

_Iron,_ thought Stas. He and his sister had used the naturally iron-rich caves to neutralize the vampires they were hunting. Now the mage --- yes, definitely a mage, he reeked of magick --- he was using it against Nicolas. Even when in direct contact with their skin iron had never had more than a mild weakening effect on him or on Shura – probably a consequence of their convoluted parentage. Stas had never been more grateful for that. They were both still a little dazed from whatever it was that had gotten them from the forest to the inside of the cave in a split second, but when that wore off……

"Planning your escape, jaguar boy?"

The voice was sarcastic but Stas immediately made his mind go blank when he realized the mage had picked up his train of thought. It was a trick he and Shura had learned early on --- it took far less energy than putting up mind shields and was just as efficient.

The mage laughed. "Don't bother hiding your thoughts from me --- I will have all of them soon enough. And don't waste your energy trying to escape --- I assure you this is the end of the line." He crossed his arms and shook his head as he looked down at them. "Look at the pathetic pair of you --- what a bad joke that you have managed to eliminate the rest of our so-carefully-planned master race."

"If those we killed were the master race," Stas scoffed even as he tried to get his breathing under control. "If that was the best you could come up with you're not very good."

The mage sighed theatrically. "You're right. I admit. This batch was a failure. And to think I had to wait for the lot of you to come into adulthood to actually confirm that failure. Such grand plans Xavier had ----of course all the effort was mine, he never does the dirty work. And such effort I put into it too. Splicing genes from different fathers --- but the whole experiment wasn't a total failure. We came up with you two. Have you figured out your parentage yet?"

Both youngsters remained silent.

Tilting his head, the blond man continued in a sarcastic voice, addressing Stas. "I guess we misidentified the jaguar gene for aggression or perhaps that idiot brother of Aleksandra's beat it out of you because you are certainly not expressing it. Your father --- or one of your fathers ---was quite the killer. Absolutely elegant in his ruthlessness.

And you my little enigma?" He gazed at Shura, taking in her bruises and wounds. "Mage and dragonseeker genes from the great Razvan, Malinov brains, the infusion of Carpathian from your mother, the same gene for jaguar sense we gave to wimpy over here. And here you are, bruised and bloodied because you can't heal. Nevertheless, despite the imperfections, I actually got something from you. Something unexpected but useful just the same." An abslutely chilling, gooseflesh-raising smile spread on his pale face.

"From you I have learned the great art of breaking those pesky Carpathian bonds."

* * *

Dominic lifted his head as the great wolf growled. They had split up to search for signs of the three who were missing and he had been crouched on the ground, checking the underbrush. The wolf's agitation only confirmed his suspicions and he put his hand on the creature's head to calm him. He turned as Manolito came up behind him and then he put his finger to his lips to signal silence.

_You've found something, Dominic? _the younger man spoke directly into his mind.

Dominic rose slowly as the wolf's hackles lifted along its broad back. _There is someone else here.

* * *

_

The mage had disappeared with Stas. Nicolas dragged himself along the floor of the cave til he got to where Shura was seated, her head in her hands. She lifted her head as he came close, stared dazedly at him. She blinked a little in confusion as she became suddenly aware she was alone with him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, struggling to a sitting position propped against the stone wall.

"Not really," she admitted, surprising him. "I should never have gone to sleep."

"Are you always like this after a hunt?"

Shura hesitated a moment then nodded reluctantly. "Once I've fallen asleep, yes. I'm a slow healer but when I do start my body likes to shut down. I should never have gone to sleep."

"You need more than sleep. You need to feed."

She blinked at him, wondering why he was speaking so softly, like he was talking to a wounded animal.

"You are a bit banged up," Nicolas said, as if he had heard her thoughts. Concern was bringing him out of the iron-induced lethargy. He pushed back her hair and she felt him probing her mentally, trying to gauge her injuries. She realized belatedly that she was leaning against his hand.

"I'm fine,' she said at once, straightening, but Nicolas shook his head no. He rolled up his sleeve and lifted his wrist but she pushed it away.

"No blood."

She tried to draw her hand back but Nicolas had caught hold of it and didn't seem inclined to let it go. "You're cold," he said almost distractedly as he touched her chilly palm. Taking hold of her other hand he turned her palms up and blew his warm breath over them and then closed her hands over that warmth, capturing them between his own. Startled by the gesture, Shura felt the gooseflesh rise on her arms, a shiver run involuntarily down her spine. There was the sudden urge to bolt.

"Don't," he said softly, lifting his dark eyes to hers. It was almost too much looking into them and yet she found she couldn't turn away.

"Nicolas, I need to find my brother," she said lamely.

His hand tightened over hers. "We'll find him together. Get your breath back first. I need a moment myself." He sighed, willing his lethargic body to respond to the danger they were in. "Then maybe we can find a crack in the wards around this place."

_Wards. _ Shura forced her head up and scanned the cavern with her mind. Yes there were wards, fairly powerful ones.

"We don't have much time," she said. "The mage is going to turn him."

Nicolas shook his head, not understanding. "Turn him?"

Shura turned to him, the expression in her blue eyes more worried than he had ever seen. "The vampires --- the ones we found, they hadn't turned on their own. They had been Carpathian and jaguar and other strange things but not vampire. They hadn't become vampire on their own. This mage has found a way to force it."

"Impossible!" Nicolas found himself crying out, even as he realized she was speaking the truth. She had lifted this from the mage's mind --- and from what was left of the minds of .those she and Stas had put out of their misery.

"I wish," Shura said softly. "He intends to use it on Stas. Maybe on me --- but he's a bit afraid of my --- unpredictability."

"He will not lay one finger on you," Nicolas assured her with quiet conviction. Shura rubbed tiredly between her eyes and he lifted his hand to stroke the back of her head. "Give yourself a moment. Don't force it. You've just been through a battle --- we won't do your brother any favors rushing into another one before you've even caught your breath."

"I won't have any breath to catch if we don't get moving soon." She turned to him again, looking him square in the eye. "I'm sorry, Nicolas, this will probably mean it'll take even longer before I get back enough strength to break the bond. I know I keep promising but.."

Nicolas lifted a gentle finger to her lips and she was startled into silence. "I need to tell you something," he said to her quietly, his knuckles trailing lightly down her cheek. "I went back. Back to Brazil. Back to Lara."

Her eyebrows shot up and it was a moment before she could speak. "That's," she began and then faltered a moment. "That's good. Why didn't you stay? You should have stayed."

"You were in danger."

Stunned, Shura's eyes grew wide. "I didn't call you, Nicolas, I swear I didn't. My shields were up the whole time --- I swear it…"

Nicolas was shaking his head. "I know, Shura," he said softly, his hands moving to cup her face even as she moved to evade him. " _I_ _know." _His warm fingers moved restlessly against her cold cheeks, like they had been dying to touch her. "But Dominic was right. This bond is stronger than we thought. Stronger than both of us. I still cannot find you when you don't want to be found but I can feel you. All the time now, not just some of the time. I knew that you were in danger."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. " I didn't know that what I was doing would pull you from your mate."

He stared at her so hard she shifted uncomfortably and then turned away again. "Lara…" he faltered for a moment. "Lara …it's like nothing's there anymore. I'm losing her. Or I've already lost her --- "

"No!" Shura clutched at his arm. "You haven't. Once I cut our bond ---" For some reason her stomach rolled as she said that but she kept on. "Once I cut our bond you have a chance …"

"Cutting bonds, what an interesting topic."

They both turned as the mage reappeared, smiling.

Shura turned smoldering eyes on him. "What have you done with my brother?"

"He's been secured. In a place where you can't get to him. So you can't get into any mischief together." He looked at the two of them. "So sweet. You look good together. Too bad this little union isn't going to last. At least I'm going to get more practice severing Carpathian lifebonds."

"Enough of the fantasies. You don't know how to sever bonds."

"Oh you think you have the exclusive on that power, Aleksandra? I must admit that twisted little mind of yours was the first to come up with the idea, but you're certainly not the only one who can do it. Of course I've had to make some adjustments since I'm not a freak like you, but I think I've got it down. I made a tiny little mess during that little experiment back in Brazil resulting in you getting attached --- "

Nicolas struggled to rise "Experiment?" his voice wavered. "What the hell do you mean experiment?"

"Exactly that," the mage said drily. "An experiment in disconnection. Lightning-charged, mage-driven. An experiment in ….. Carpathian divorce, shall we say. Yes, you came up with a very interesting idea, Aleksandra. "

"I came up with the idea to save my brother from turning. Not to break apart lifemates."

"But it opens up such a wealth of possibilities --- delightfully, deliciously demonic possibilities. Yes, what a wonderful thing I have learned from watching you."

"You didn't learn every well. My brother remains free. Everyone else you cut off reconnected. "

"Yes, except for this one over here. No matter. I now know what I did wrong --- I was simply too greedy, tried to sever too many at once. And this wrong reconnection --- you have complicated things a great deal Nicolas de la Cruz. I am going to sever that bond or maybe I'll just kill you. That way you'll be just as disconnected.

"You're not familiar with a lifebond are you?" Nicolas gritted. "Kill me and you affect her as well."

"She'll only be of use to me until I can extract everything that little mind has hidden. She and her brother have led me a merry chase over the years. No more."

"Why did you wait all this time," Nicolas hedged, trying to buy time to think what to do. "You spirited us here with you magick ---- if you could have transported her and her brother to you at any time then why didn't you ? Why only now?"

"Simple. I needed a conduit. All magick does."

"What conduit?"

"Why, the same one I used in Brazil when I cut off all your lifebonds. Lara, your ex-mate, daughter of the great Razvan."

"Lara? That's impossible! She's back in Brazil!"

"That," sniffed the mage. " Shows how much you know." Before Nicolas could process that the pale figure lifted his arms and instantly the air crackled with electricity, lifting the hairs on the backs of their necks. "Now, shall we get started?"

* * *

_Author's note: Once again apologies for not being able to write everything at once. Not much more to go. Thank you for bearing with me!_

_P.S. If anyone needs a refresher on what happened in Brazil please revisit chapters 14 and 15_


	34. Chapter 34

Dominic bared his teeth, whipping around at the sudden, unmistakable rush of magic. An explosion of air and suddenly there was a figure on the ground where only a moment ago was bare grass.

Manolito drew in a breath, and beside him, the red-haired woman they had discovered following them fetched her hands to her mouth. "Nicolas!"

On the ground the figure moaned and tried to rise. The woman was beside him at once, helping him to a sitting position, drawing him to lean back against her.

Nicolas was vaguely aware of a soft voice chanting his name. A familiar voice, a familiar touch. A name leapt to his lips. "Lara?" He blinked his eyes open and despite the joy at seeing her beloved face his mind turned to the happenings of just a few minutes before.

_" I needed a conduit," the pale-haired mage had said." All magick does."_

_"What conduit?" he had asked, completely confused._

_"Why, the same one I used in Brazil when I cut off all your lifebonds. Lara, your ex-mate, daughter of the great Razvan."_

_He had been stunned, his mind whirling as he tried to fathom the implications of those words. If they were true it had not been Aleksandra who had been responsible for his lifebond with Lara being severed- it had been Lara herself! But before Nicolas could figure anything else out, the mage had lifted his arms and called up the magick to start a spell. Suddenly…_

_"Wait."_

_Both he and the mage had turned their eyes to where Shura was huddled on the floor. _

_"Wait?" the mage had echoed, his pale brows lifting so they disappeared under his pale hair. _

_The girl met his eyes squarely."I have a proposition."_

_Nicolas remembered frowning. Suddenly her mind was closed to him again and it had made him apprehensive - even more so than the precariousness of their situation. _

_"Let him go," she had said._

_"Why should I?"_

_"If you do I won't fight you."_

_The mage had laughed. "And what makes you think your fighting will make any sort of difference given the current puny state you are in?"_

_"You really want to risk it? " the girl had responded calmly, her voice that of a seasoned negotiator. "You won't admit it even to yourself but you have no idea what I'm capable of. Even I have no idea what I'm capable of. You have no use for him—it's me you want. If you keep him here you run the risk of the two of us putting up a fight. Let him go and you can do anything you want with me. Scout's honor." _

* * *

While Nicolas was trying to get his fuddled mind to make head and tail of what had just happened, Dominic was having an interesting conversation of his own.

"Dominic get her away," said a voice in his head.

_"Aleksandra?" _He was suddenly alert. "_Where are you? How do we help you?"_

_"Take her away!"_

_"Who?"_

_"That red-haired chick. Get her away from there. Now."_

_"Aleksandra, this is not the time for petty jealousy…."_

_"This isn't jealousy you decrepit idiot! She's the conduit! The mage has used her before and he can use her to get to anyone around her. With her there all of you are within striking distance. Get. Her. Away. From. There."_

_"Where are you? I'm coming to help you."_

_"Damn your argument-loving ass Dominic - get her away now. He will strike through her or take her over. Do it now. I can't move til I know everyone's out of range."_

_"What in hell are you up to?"_

_"None of your effing business. Just get her away."_

* * *

Shura let go of the temporary mind-link to Dominic, was pulled back to physical reality by a flash of pain. She winced and bit back an expletive. When she opened her scrunched up eyes the mage's pale face rippled into view.

"Interesting," he said in an observant tone of voice. "You heal no better now than you did when you were three." He straightened a bit, looking down his nose at her. "But you're better at hiding the pain."

Shura was breathing through her teeth. She looked down at her throbbing hands and saw he had yanked off a fifth fingernail.

"I lost you there for a moment. Trying to contact your Nicolas? No use expecting him to come-and-save-the day !" He smiled a non-smile. "He's not your Nicolas anymore."

* * *

Rafael burst out of the underbrush, followed by Dimitri. "Nicolas! Are you all right?" Belatedly he registered the red haired woman crouched beside his brother. "Lara?"

"Where are Stas and Shura, de la Cruz? " Dimitri asked suddenly, registering the absence of the two youngsters. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the woman hovering over Nicolas.

"A mage has them," Nicolas managed wearily, still shellshocked from being transported.

"A mage?"

"The mage that's been after them all their lives," Dominic replied for Nicolas. "The mage who kept Shura from you as a child."

"What does he want with them?" Dimitri's voice was shrill and in his agitation he asked a question he already knew the answer to.

"He wants what she knows, what they know" Nicolas replied quietly. "He wants their powers."

"And I want him," Dimitri muttered, his eyes wild. "Where is she?"

"I don't know. A cave somewhere. I was blasted in and out of there by magick -"

"She's your mate - you can find her through the bond!"

Nicolas gulped and his voice grew hoarse, unsteady. "I can't feel her," he said softly. "The mage has cut the bond."

Dominic frowned taking a closer look. "Are you sure Nicolas? Because there is _some_thing still attached to you. And it looks like the same lifebond. " He squinted and peered even closer. "Or part of it."

* * *

Shura shivered with the magick. A lot of it - too much, she was getting nauseous. His magick was probing her all over, inside and out, seeking out her own magick. It felt like a live thing, like some intangible insect moving on and inside her and she gritted her teeth to remain still through the violation. She had promised she would stay still and not fight him in exchange for letting Nicolas go. Besides, there were other people still in range of the mage's power and there was no way she would go back on her word until everyone else was out of range. The risk of retribution was too great and she already knew that the mage had figured out her biggest weakness: other people's pain, rather than her own. He would not hesitate to use them to get what he wanted from her.

"Interesting! " the mage said brightly to her. " You are leaking magic!"

Starltled by the idea, Shura turned her eyes to him. "What are you talking about?"

"Where I cut your bond you are leaking magic. Your connection with delaCruz was a great deal tougher than I imagined for a pair who had not yet gone through that ridiculous Carpathian mating ritual. It appears I miscalculated a bit and did not manage to cut it all the way through."

"What the hell do you mean? I'm still bonded?"

"More's the pity," he sniffed. "But it wasn't a total loss it seems! If I had cut the bond cleanly your aura would have sealed itself right away just like your brother's did when you cut his. As it is now, with that thread of lifebond remaining you have a hole in your side that isn't closing - and damned if you're not leaking magick as well as life force!"

The crazy nut had more than a single screw loose, Shura thought. What in hell was he talking about? How could he only half-sever the bond? The thought had never even occurred to her that that was possible. And how could she be leaking life force and magick? She didn't feel anything! She glanced down and saw a thread of red-orange still attached to her side and a glimpse of scarlet mist dissipating from it.

She swore to herself. Could it be true? She fought to control the panic bubbling up and racked her brains for what she knew about lifebonds. She had studied them a great deal before she had been forced to attempt cutting her brother's - and the mage had been right about one thing, the sealed aura. Auras surrounding Carpathians remained singularly sealed and unbroken for as long as they remained unmated and unrecognized. The breach would begin at recognition, and then when the connection was fully formed and sealed, life force flowed freely between the mates. That was why Carpathians seldom survived the death of their partners. The possibility that their auras would not reseal into singular entities had been the biggest singular risk to Dimitri and Skyler when she had cut their bond. She had risked it all to keep her brother from turning and as far as she could tell Dimitri's aura had sealed itself. He was now, for all intents and purposes, a single whole, rather than the fragmented entity he had been while partially bonded to that girl. Shura's mind whirled as she pondered the implications of what the mage had said. She got the sudden cold feeling that it made perfect sense. Her bond with Nicolas had been partially severed - she could see the raw edges where it had been cut. But because it remained partially _un_cut the hole wasn't healing. And, yes, it would make sense that she was leaking life force through it, the way Carpathians did when a bonded mate died. Too little yet for her to feel it but yes it made sense. Also, he had cut on her side of the bond, so she was guessing the effect would be more intense for her than Nicolas although it would only be a matter of time before his life force bled out as well.

Yet again she was pulled from her own thoughts by a flash of pain, this time from her left hand. There was an accompanying snap of bone as her pinky finger broke.

The mage was bending over her again, watching closely. "No," he said in the same observant tone. "I think after the fifth try I can safely say that your bones don't heal any better than your skin." He straightened. "I had thought maybe the healing power was latent and would come to force as you reached adulthood but that isn't the case. Too bad for you, Aleksandra."

She didn't answer, forced the pain to a part of her mind that she could lock up where it wouldn't interfee with her other thought processes. The mage didn't seem to be aware of what she was doing. He was obviously attributing her silence to a high tolerance for pain.

"All right, enough," the mage said."Time to get down to business I think. You and your brother are too much trouble to keep around so it's best if I just take and keep the part of you that's useful - your magic …. and everything you know."

Shura knew what was coming and although she had braced herself for it she realized instantly that she had had no idea what she was in for. As the mage fused his power into the hole in her aura and began to draw out her essence she thought for a desperate moment that she wouldn't be able to keep herself together. It was like -gods, it was like being turned inside out. Her body went rigid and her eyes rolled back in their sockets as he began to suck out what felt like her soul….

On the verge of panic, Shura retreated into her mind. It was like running down a deep dark tunnel, slamming doors behind her so her pursuer couldn't get through. She kept running as he burst through every one. Deeper and deeper into her own mind she went.

_You prepared for this, _suddenly said a voice in her mind. Her own. _You know what to do._

Inside her own mind, she slowed and then stopped. She _had_ prepared for this. Many times. Panic had made her forget that. Back at the lamasery, Master Su had made them fortify themselves by preparing to face their worst fears. Both she and Stas had been scarred deeply by what had been done to them as children, and they had never admitted even to each other that their biggest fears were being made to go through the same thing again. Only when they had prepared themselves to face going through the same horrors again had their nightmares stopped. Stas had conquered his fear of being caged by actually let himself be caged and learning all the ways possible of getting out of one. Shura, who had spent her early years buried, had never been as successful at getting rid of her abhorrence of going to ground, but she had learned to control herself well enough to tolerate being buried without losing her sanity. They knew that they would ultimately have to face magic, and knowing their ultimate battle might be with the mage Xavier, they had both set out to find out what could help them.

_Wise man say knowledge is power._

All their research had boiled down to one solution. Silver. The only element that was consistently acknowledged as effective against all that was unnatural and supernatural. It was especially effective when a being was in transition - such as shapeshifting - or using their power in some way.

Just like the mage was doing now.

Her core essence now secure in the part of her mind that she had partitioned off, Shura opened her eyes. The mage was bending over her, his white skin emitting a pale glow as he sucked in the red mist coming from her side. She was getting dizzy and she swallowed down nausea. He was close, but not close enough. She focused her energy on the hole in her aura and drew back a little, resisting his pull. As she had expected he bent instinctively closer, intensifying the draw. She resisted a bit more and he came even closer til he was practically face to face with her.

Shura moved her tongue and worked out a tiny package she kept in her mouth, just behind her teeth. She and Stas never went on a hunt without at least one of these in their mouths - it had saved them countless times against vampires. She worked off the rice paper wrapping and positioned it between her teeth. It was a small needle, made of the purest silver. Silver, the only element she knew that could halt the flow of supernatural energy in its tracks. Enough of it could kill a vampire, while a needle this size could stop a shapeshifter in the process of the transformation … or a mage in the middle of a spell.

Shura slowed her breathing and prepared to focus. She and her brother had spent a great deal of time and a great deal of saliva learning the finer points of spitting out deadly needles under the tutelage of one of Master Su's apprentices. She was determined not to let it go to waste. She drew on all her reserves and concentrated all her remaining power (which wasn't much) behind the needle. She then sent the mage a thought that would startle him out of his concentration.

"_Boo."_

The mage's eyes snapped open. Instantly, Shura released her pent-up breath in concentrated rush through her pursed lips. The needle shot out of her mouth like a tiny arrow and embedded itself deep in the mage's eye. Instantly the flow of magick that had been sucking her dry stopped and Shura caught her breath. The mage had gone rigid, clutching at his eye. The backlash of magic he had directed at her recoiled and slammed into him so hard he staggered backwards, away from her. Shura managed to push herself to a sitting position and looked to the corner of the cave where the mage had foolishly left Nicolas' sword lying on the ground. _The oversight is going to cost him, _Shura thought feeling a surge of energy rejuvenate her at the thought of obliterating the source of all her nightmares. At long last! She held out her hand and called the sword to her. It flew across the cave and flipped into her hand, the one whose fingers were still intact. It was a little too heavy and cumbersome but it would do. She ran her finger, bloody from the forceful removal of its nail, lightly over the blade, and blood instantly ran from the cut to join the blood that had dried in her nail bed. It was razor sharp. _Oh yes, it would do. _

She pushed herself to her feet and staggered to where the mage had been driven to his knees and was now choking on the backlash of his own magic. Not one to ever waste time or opportunity, Shura lifted the heavy sword. It was difficult, for the mage had broken the fingers of one hand and removed the nails from the other but with a twohanded grip she managed, and promptly swung the blade straight at the mage's neck. To her surprise she toppled over, having put enough weight behind the blow to take the mage's head off … and having encountered only thin air.

She blinked - the mage was now six feet to her left. Someone had yanked him out of her way…. or he had yanked himself….. Shura bared her teeth and gathered herself to strike again. But before she could even get to her feet there was an unmistakable zing of metal, and a sword - not her own - materialized out of thin air and sliced cleanly through the mage's neck. The head went flying, hit the ground and rolled to a stop by Shura's feet, the mouth still moving wordlessly, the eyes bulging,whirling with dissipating magic. She could see her silver needle embedded in one pink, pigment-less eye.

Speechless, she was made suddenly alert by another presence in the cave. She whirled as a dark shape formed out of mist. One she knew.

"You," she breathed.

* * *

Nicolas….Nicolas…

It seemed a million voices were chanting his name. All of them familiar. He had been swinging in and out of consciousness, assailed by the most horrifying images. He was being sucked dry. By what he didn't know. He was being chased through dark tunnels by something that wanted his very soul. Images of silver. Blood. Death. A head being separated from a body.

_Nicolas!_

* * *

A stream of colorful expletives passed through the girl's lips and Dominic Dragonseeker, standing there with his bloody sword still in hand, was left gaping.

"My word, your brother's going to need more than soap to wash that mouth out," he said.

"Damn you to the burning sun Dominic, why do you keep interfering?" the girl ranted, furious. " This was not your fight!"

The ancient dragonseeker sobered instantly. " No killing for you Aleksandra. You are too obscenely young. You will have time enough in the future to learn the darkness of taking another life."

"I've been hunting since I was six!" she hissed.

Dominic shook his head. "Ending a vampire's existence is different from taking an actual life - no matter how twisted." He reached out and patted her dirty cheek. "I hope you'll never have to learn just how different."

She glared at him, swatted at his hand. "His life was mine!"

"That argument is now moot isn't it?"

"You had no right to interfere!"

"Oh no? And do you think _do you really think_ you were the only person that mage has ever harmed? That you were the only one with a score to settle? Really, Aleksandra?"

Shura opened her mouth for a scathing retort but Dominic sent her a fleeting glimpse of the past, a past with him in the hands of the mage, while vampire parasites crawled his insides. Her jaw snapped shut as comprehension flooded her.

"I still hate you," she muttered after a moment.

"You'll get over it," Dominic replied sweetly.

* * *

Nicolas, who had been in the grip of a strong convulsion, swallowed as it eased, unable to do anything but accept the comfort of the soft arms around him, the murmur of familiar voices around him. He realized he was shaking, his eyes wild, the gooseflesh rippling up and down his arms from the danger too close, the sense of a disaster just barely evaded. A name sprang to his mind and his lips unbidden. " _Shura."_

* * *

"All right. Time to get out of here, little girl. We'll pass for your brother on the way out."

"Stas is free? You saw him?"

Dominic nodded. "He picked his way out of the cage Selin put him in. He's waiting for us on the mountaintop."

Shura nodded, more relieved than she let on that her brother was all right. She blew out a breath, gearing up for what would surely be a strenuous run out of there. Suddenly a swirl of air lifted her dark hair, blowing strands into her eyes. Annoyed she pushed the locks back and then suddenly stopped. And stared.

"Wow,' she said softly.

"Thank you," said Dominic. Or what used to be Dominic. Standing there was a dragon - yes a dragon, a real live dragon. Shura tilted her head back to look up at it, at him. Enormous, at least twenty feet tall when upright, she estimated.

"Twenty-five," he said catching the thought. She could have sworn he was preening.

She couldn't help staring. She had a great imagination but even her imagination had never come up with this. The dragon's body was immense, muscled, covered with deep red interlocking scales that looked flexible yet hard as steel. The tail was barbed and moved with a power and sinewy strength that left no doubt to its value as a weapon. Its tapered head looked down at her from atop a long muscular neck at the base of which sprouted folded back dark red wings of a span she could only imagine. He lowered his head and gazed at her from multi-faceted green eyes. "All aboard, litle girl." He wasn't speaking in the usual manner but for some reason she understood him perfectly.

"Of course," he rumbled. "You are dragon, too. Now come on. Let's get out of here."

Shura hesitated a moment, a thought coming to her head. Suddenly she murmured "So that's how it's done." Dominic drew back as mist swirled and then a rush of energy whooshed where Shura had been standing. The mist cleared and suddenly it was Dominic's turn to stare.

Shura wriggled a little. She had mustered up enough energy to shapeshift and was trying to get used to her new form. She turned when she heard a noise and was not pleased to find she had to look up at Dominic's enormous dragon form. He was emitting a peculiar huffing noise and she realized belatedly that it was the draconian equivalent of laughter.

"What?" she asked indignantly.

Dominic guffawed. "Sorry, but you are just the cutest wittle dwagon I have ever seen in my long life," he rumbled in dragon-talk.

Cute? Shura was dismayed. Cute was not what she was going for. Dragons were supposed to be majestic, awe-inspiring, fearsome, magnificent. They were not ever, gods forbid, cute. She suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the cave's drip-pool of water and stopped short. Her dragon form was dwarfed by Dominic's - she was quite the perfect miniature of him in fact. Her neck was graceful, her triangular head in perfect proportion to a plump little body that was pink-scaled rather than red. Where Dominic was all formidable edges, she was rounded and soft - like a stuffed toy version - her wings lacy and delicate, her tail dainty._ Dainty_? That word had never been used to describe her in her life - not even by her doting older brother. And damned if her multi-faceted blue eyes didn't have curly eyelashes! She blinked and the huge, disgustingly long-lashed eyes in the reflection batted coyly in tandem. She might have been legally adult in human terms but her dragon form reflected her age - or lack of it - in relation to Dominic. Beside him she was literally a baby dragon. And, yes, a cute one. Shura had never been so utterly humiliated in her life.

Abruptly the image shifted and she fell on her behind. She hadn't the energy to hold the shapeshift and once more was in her two-legged natural form. She began to swear again.

"Because you are leaking life force from that hole in your side and those hands must be hurting miserably I won't bother to wash your mouth out myself, " Dominic said drily. "On my back now, we have to get out of here, get your mate to close up that hole."

"I don't have a mate," she replied almost in reflex.

"The hole in your side is making you delusional. On my back now, Aleksandra. There's no more time to waste."

* * *

When Dominic got back to the clearing with the two youngsters the relief was loud and palpable. It was short-lived, however, for as soon as Dominic swirled back into his two-legged form he had to stick out a long arm to keep Shura from hitting the ground.

"What's wrong with her?" Dimitri growled, caught between relief and a sudden, new fear. He came up to his sister and drew her arm around his shoulders, trying to pull her upright. Stas was supporting her from the opposite side. "Shura?"

"I'm fine, Dima," the girl mumbled. "Just sleepy. Can we go home now?" She raised her head successfully for a brief moment before it fell forward again.

"Not just yet," Dominic replied, watching her closely. He thought for a moment and then turned. "Lara we need you."

The red-haired woman, who up to that moment had been silent, tending to the half-conscious Nicolas, raised her eyes to him.

"What's wrong with my sister, Dominic?" Dimitri growled.

"The same thing that's wrong with Nicolas." The ancient dragonseeker straightened as expectant eyes turned to him. "Apparently Selin the mage tried to sever their lifebond and bungled the job. So now they are attached by half a bond - or maybe less -" he squinted a bit at Aleksandra and then at Nicolas. "For those of you with the sight you may be able to see that where the bond was severed their auras are now broken and so both of them are leaking, so to speak."

"Leaking?" Manolito frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, Dominic?"

"She knows what I'm talking about," he said pointedly to Lara. The red-haired woman looked up at him with troubled eyes. "You see what I see don't you?" Seeing her hesitate, he repeated softly. "Don't you, Lara?"

She nodded.

"And now you have a decision to make." His eyes bored into her. "I don't think I need to tell you that neither of them will last very long with their auras leaking like that. They have spent a good amount of time running around each other denying this bond and all its associated byproducts - all in deference to you.

So I believe it is only right that you get to choose. There are only two things to be done if their lives are to be saved. Either we let Nicolas claim her now, in every sense of the word, and seal that bond with a final blood exchange, or you finish what the mage started."

"What do you mean?" she asked hoarsely.

"You know exactly what I mean. You are the only one here besides Aleksandra with mage blood. You are the only one who can manipulate the magick and break the bond. And seeing as you were Nicolas' mate before all these unfortunate events, it is only right that you get to choose. "

"You want me to break the bond?"

Dominic spoke kindly now. "Isn't it what you want Lara?" he asked her softly, his eyes were compassionate. " You do understand that there is noone to blame for these unfortunate events except the mage whose life is now forfeit - but now two lives hang in the balance. They will not survive like this - their very life forces are bleeding away as we speak. Either you risk severing the bond now, for good, or you let Nicolas seal it. For good. You must choose."

Suddenly the little glen was so quiet they could hear the wind in the trees. Lara looked from the half-conscious man she held in her arms to the girl being propped up on either side by her brothers.

"I can't," she said softly, desperately, tears filling her eyes. "I cannot, Dominic."

_

* * *

_

Author's note: Sorry, had to stop somewhere! Down to the wire now -just a couple of chapters to go. Thank you for bearing with me. I explained a little bit more of my concept of bonds and auras in chapter 5 but I hope it is not too hard to follow. I value all your comments soI hope you will let me know what you think - by all means vent if you feel like it


	35. Chapter 35

_Author's note:_

_Apologies for this very late posting ! Almost at the end now just one chapter to go- I hope there is still some interest in this and that you will let me know what you thiink. Thank you for bearing with me._

_(Just to avoid confusion, the sentences in italics are flashbacks, the rest is present-time). I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

**Months Later**

Nicolas paused at the threshold of the small room. The redheaded woman bent over her work was instantly aware of him and turned. He smiled as she came up to him. Taking her hands, he bent to kiss her fingers. As they smiled at each other their thoughts were inevitably taken back to the little clearing in the woods where months before Nicolas' very existence lay at a crossroads.

_"You must choose," Dominic Dragonseeker had said to Lara as she had held Nicolas in her arms, his life force bleeding out._

_"I cannot, Dominic," she had replied. _

_"You must. There is no time."_

_Lara had hedged, reluctant to take on the responsibility, the consequences of the whatever that would result from her choice. Then Natalya had appeared, having been summoned by Dominic, and her presence had tilted the balance of Lara's dilemma. Natalya was older, more experienced and more skilful in the use of magic and surely the two of them would be able to pull off what this one small young girl had once been able to do alone?_

* * *

"We have had a breakthrough today," Lara said to him, her fingers moving gently against Nicolas' cheek. "The medicine does seem to work against the microbes. It doesn't kill them directly but it keeps them from reproducing and they just die at the end of their natural life cycle, which isn't more than a few days."

"So Shura was right," Nicolas murmured and handed a package to her. More of the meds for their experiments..

"It remains to be seen if we can tolerate ingesting the medicine - it is made for humans after all. But it gives us great hope, Nicolas."

"I'm so glad." He kissed her hand again and smiled into her green eyes. Looking into them transported him back once more.

_"You're sure you want to do this, Lara." _

_It was Dominic's voice, tense, grim. Nicolas had been drifting in and out of consciousness and wasn't fully aware of what was going on. He was vaguely conscious of the fact that his head was lying on someone's lap and he had opened his eyes and looked up into sparkling green pools. Lara had been looking down at him, her red hair spilling over his face, those emerald eyes dark with concern, a frown marring her lovely brow. He frowned himself and wondered why he had suddenly thought the hair and eye color were wrong - should've been brown and blue…._

_"It's now or never," said another voice, also female, also familiar. Natalya bent over him, her expression equally concerned. "I can help but you must decide now. What will it be, Lara?"_

_He saw Lara's face crumple for a moment like she was in pain. He felt her soft hands stroke his face. The last thing that registered in his foggy brain before he drifted off again was seeing her slowly nod. _

_The next thing he had been aware of had been an extremity of pain the likes of which he had not known in his very long and frequently very violent life. A sensation of being torn, or of an attempt to tear - it was like someon or something trying to cut out his insides with a very blunt knife. Colors churned, colors he didn't even know existed, colors that then began to swirl into gray. His body ripped, his soul ripped. He was coming apart._

_"It's not working!" someone was saying. "It's not…"_

_"Shura! Shura!" Someone else was calling out a name, a name that should have been on his lips, he registered vaguely, a name that should have meant something…_

_And then he was being shaken awake yet again, awake when all he wanted to do was sleep for a very long time. "Nicolas, goddammit, Nicolas!" Someone slapped him across the face, someone with a very strong hand. Again! He sputtered, managing a feeble complaint._

_"No time to sleep," It was Dominic again, growling in his ear. "She's dying. You're dying. You must claim her now, Nicolas!"_

* * *

"How is she?" Nicolas could tell Lara was keeping her voice carefully controlled, but her concern was genuine.

"She's holding up."

"It can't be easy," Lara said softly, looking away.

"It isn't easy for any of us," Nicolas replied. "How are _you_?"

Lara turned back to him and managed a thin smile."As well as can be." There were other words that remained unsaid but Nicolas heard them anyway in his mind. _As well as can be for someone who had her life ripped away._

He sighed a little. They had all had their lives torn asunder that fateful night. Lara and Natalya had attempted to fully sever the lifebond that the mage Selin had left half-attached between him and Shura. But they had failed to do more than cut it open wider, and its only consequence had been to allow the leakage of life force from the two of them to go from trickle to torrent. It was fortunate that Dominic had been there and had instantly been aware of what was happening. Nicolas couldn't remember the details of what happened next - he only remembered sinking his teeth into soft flesh and tasting Shura's blood in his mouth, and the feel of a sharp nail slicing at the side of his neck and a soft mouth being pressed against it.

_A voice, tense, agitated, ordering "Drink, Shura !" _

_Nicolas' essence swirling, reaching for another, Shura's, he realized. But she was pulling away, tugging, pulling free. _

_"Don't you dare die on us, Shura, drink, damn you!" _

_It was the last thing Nicolas heard before he felt her essence pull free and suddenly he knew he must go after her. Her spirit soared, unrestricted, gleeful. It whirled and leapt and if she could have he knew she would have laughed. She was happy to be free. Happy to be …. dead. Nicolas's spirit reached for her, grabbed. If she were corporeal it would have been the equivalent of a pair of hands - very strong hands - seizing her by the ankles. No! she would have yelled if she'd had a mouth. If she'd had feet she would have kicked out. No!_

_Shura's spirit was strong, but her life force weak so it could not bind her. But he was stronger, took her back with him. And he had bound her. Bound her to him with blood. Bound her body, blood and soul. When next they woke their bond was fully sealed._

_But it didn't change the fact that she had wanted to die. _

* * *

He gazed at Lara. That face so beloved. If he had been fatalistic he would have said theirs had been doomed from the start. Because of her work with the parasites, which she could not continue were she to become fully Carpathian, he had not been able to fully convert her. She had been living half in his world most of the time they had been together. Then - well, _that _had happened. The lightning bolt of magick that had changed their lives so completely. He studied the lines of strain around Lara's mouth and knew that she was putting on a brave face. The past months could not have been easy. But then they had not been easy for anyone, least of all him. He had been bonded to a girl who was impossibly young, impossibly impulsive and impossibly different from anyone he had ever known. Lara hadn't wanted to be bonded to him either at the start, but that had been part of the natural course of things and theirs had taken a relatively normal Carpathian mating path. Relative to his bonding with Shura anyway. For starters, Shura had wanted to die rather than be bonded to him.

Unable to bear it, he had confronted her with it shortly after their blood exchange.

_"It would've been simpler if you had let me die, wouldn't it?" It was not the first time she had something like this to him._

_"It was never an option," he had echoed his answer from long ago. It had not been the first time circumstances had forced a blood exchange between them - when a magick-induced frenzy had caused two of his brothers to attack her back in Brazil, he had had to give her his blood to save her life. In the process, the blood exchange had reformed the bond she had managed to sever only hours before. _

_"You didn't want this, Nicolas. I know you resent being forced into a bonding like this."_

_He had knelt and taken her small face into his hands. "And you? You cannot tell me truthfully that this is the way you wanted to find a mate."_

_"What, by becoming your dirty mistress? No, can't say it was. Not that I was looking for a mate anyway."_

_"Stop calling yourself that," he had said to her, truly distressed._

_"What, your dirty mistress? It's what I am, isn't it? Everyone around here agrees with me, don't you?"_

* * *

Lara's voice brought him back to the present. "Tell her we've made a breakthrough, Nicolas. And -" she paused a moment, looking away. "… and give her my best."

She gave him the brave, thin smile again and walked away. Again his heart broke a little. Nicolas showed himself out, glad to have seen Lara, seen her well, but his heart heavy with other concerns. How difficult it must have been for Lara. But she had no idea how truly difficult it was for them as well. He had brought Shura home to Brazil - his home, not hers - where to her nothing was familiar, and where memories were not good. Maybe it had been a selfish thing to do but his only purpose had been to protect her. His family had spent centuries making the forest compound into a virtual fortress and he could honestly think of no place more secure, although the happenings of the past few months had certainly put that into question. Shura was his mate now but perhaps he should have given more thought to the fact that he had had another mate there a fairly short time ago. Lara had moved out, of course, but she had made her home there before Shura had come and that was not easily forgotten. People who worked for the de la Cruzes were wary of Shura. She was wary of his own brothers, despite knowing that they had been ensorcelled when they had attacked her. It was uncomfortable all around and though Shura never complained he knew she was not happy there. And though his only purpose had been to protect her he had come to realize that she did not feel safe there, not in that place, and certainly not around his family. It was unfortunate and it was nobody's damned fault but it was the plain bitter truth just the same. And it was a truth he had to do something about.

He glanced back at the small building where Lara did her work with Shea. This little detour had been necessary but there were other more important things that needed his attention now. He needed to do what he'd promised and take care of his mate.


	36. Chapter 36

_Author's note: Many many thanks to all who have read and reviewed. I appreciate you sharing the journey and hope the ending does not disappoint_

* * *

Dimitri stared at his unexpected guest. An odd thought struck him - was "_guest_" really the right word? Shouldn't he have been using the word, well, "_family_"?

"Well met, Dimitri," said the tall man.

"I would like to say the same," he replied slowly, warily. "Should I be saying the same, de la Cruz?"

Nicolas sighed. "Aleksandra is fine, if that's what you're asking."

Dimitri showed no outward signs of emotion but his relief was palpable to Nicolas. "I do not mean to be rude but then that means I now must ask what you are doing here?"

"I need to talk to you. It' important."

Dimitri nodded slowly. "I'm listening."

* * *

"_Pequena_."

"It wasn't me," Shura said automatically. No need to look up, no need to see who was there. Did it matter, no it did not, whoever it was would be disapproving and mildly or wildly, silently or loudly accusatory, never mind if she did or didn't do what they thought. It didn't matter.

She felt rather than saw the big figure drop down to her level presumably to look her in the eye but she wasn't giving whoever it was that satisfaction, kept her eyes out on the horizon. Better to look out at treetops and leaves than into an accusing face.

"What wasn't you?" The voice sounded puzzled - Manolito's she realized, relaxing a little. He had been less accusatory than most. No, to be fair, he had been one of the few who had actually been nice to her. Despite the fact that she had butted heads with his lifemate not too long ago back in her own home. She stole a glance at him, saw he had folded his huge frame into a crouch and was watching her expectantly. She frowned.

"Whatever it was that you were going to accuse me of," she said.

Manolito's dark brows lifted, bringing an almost comical look to his open, expressive face. "I was going to ask you a question, not make an accusation," he said simply.

Shura had the grace to feel a little foolish. She couldn't help it - everyone around here, everything around here had her on the defensive. "Ask," she said, as graciously as she could manage.

* * *

"I envy you her loyalty" Nicolas said quietly.

"You will have it soon enough, de la Cruz." Dimitri's voice was dry, matter-of-fact. "My sister has the bad habit of getting attached to those who stay around her even for a short time. People, animals…."

"Monsters?" Nicolas finished when Dimitri trailed off. He turned away. "I know what you think of me, Dimitri."

"Is that so?" the other man replied softly. "What do I think of you, Nicolas?"

Nicolas turned to meet his eyes. Dark-lashed, intensely blue. Unreadable. Like Shura's. "That I'm the Carpathian equivalent of a horse's ass," Nicolas replied candidly. "When it comes to your sister it seems I have made the wrong decision at every single turn."

"Does that include binding her to you?"

Nicolas fell silent.

* * *

"Manolito why don't you teach the humans to protect themselves? Why all this hushy hushy mysterious baloney regarding your family?"

The older man looked troubled. They had been discussing Shura's little trips to the town nearby and the buzz they had generated in the small human community. Unwanted buzz.

"They're smarter than you give them credit for, you know. _They know. _In case you don't realize it. They know who you are what you are what you can do and what dangers you pose. Right now they wrap it all up in superstition and label them old wives' tales. But they know."

"We've put a great deal of effort into keeping the truth of our existence a secret. We all decided it was for the best."

"You want them dependent on you is that it?"

"Of course not!"

"Then teach them to defend themselves! Then the superstitions will be replaced with truth and they will turn their energy and anger towards those who …. " her voice trailed off meaningfully "those who deserve it." She turned away then knowing she had said too much.

"Just how much trouble have they been giving you, Shura?" Manolito frowned.

"What does it matter?"

"It matters a great deal," said another voice. "Who has been giving you trouble?"

Shura's eyes rolled in reflex. She caught Nicolas's scent and suddenly she turned away, sick to her stomach. Manolito replied after a moment. "The people in the village," he said to his brother.

Nicolas frowned. "The people in the village? What were you doing with the people in the village, Shura? "

Again it was Manolito who had to answer. "She found a newborn. One of the local teenagers had been turned vampire."

"What? By whom? Does Zacarias know?"

"We're on it," Manolito reassured his brother.

"You won't find anything." Shura's voice was dry. "He came from out of town and there's no local trail. I looked."

"You shouldn't have!" Nicolas growled. "I willl not have you putting yourself in danger!"

"Oh and you think it would have been less dangerous for me, for everyone, to wait for nightfall so he could rise and infect others? Then there would have been ten or twenty problems, not just one."

Nicolas was not convinced. "What did you do?"

"I took care of it." Shura had to turn away again. By the gods but he reeked of the woman.

"The family didn't …. like….. the way it was handled," said Manolito.

"What's to like? I cut off his head and fried his heart and brains. Standard protocol, nothing more, nothing less."

"And you got caught?," asked Nicolas.

"Of course not!" she said indignantly. "But I'm the only new person around here so it didn't take long for them to put two and two together. I told you they weren't stupid."

"It got ugly when she went down to the village," Manolito explained.

"What were you doing in the village?, " Nicolas asked the girl through clenched teeth, trying to keep hold of his temper.

"Buying bread."

He blinked. "Bread? Why on earth were you buying bread?"

"I was hungry, why else?"

"But the pantry is stocked! I gave explicit orders …"

"Oh your pantry is stocked all right," Shura cut in. "With empty boxes and sacks of meal with roaches in them."

Nicolas turned to Manolito who only lifted his arms helplessly.

"Someone…" he swallowed to get his rage under control and then turned to Shura. She was watching him, an unfathomable expression in her eyes. All at once he realized what she must be thinking.

"By the gods - you can't possibly believe that I asked the servants to do that, Shura."

She said nothing but the look in her eyes gave him her answer. Manolito quietly withdrew, leaving them alone.

It was a moment before Nicolas got his emotions under enough control to be able to speak. "You believe I gave orders for you not to be fed," he said softly. It was a statement, not a question.

"I don't need to be fed. I can feed myself."

The realization that she doubted him was so painful that for a moment Nicolas could not breathe. "You believe I would do something like that to force you to take blood from me."

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

He knelt beside her, took her face in his hands. Shura wrenched her chin free. She couldn't stand it when he looked at her like that, so closely. _Like he gave a shit._ But he saw anyway.

Nicolas saw. He touched her mind and saw in her small face that not only had she been going hungry, she was also totally miserable. The sunshine and rainbows were gone and he truly mourned it. "Why didn't you say anything?" he said at last. Though she shouldn't have had to say anything. He should have known. _Would_ have known if he had been paying more attention.

"I can take care of myself."

"That was never in any doubt," Nicolas replied. "But this is your home now. You shouldn't be going hungry in -"

"_Your_ home," Shura broke in pointedly. "Not mine."

Nicolas had to look away. "This isn't the way I wanted things to be."

"Oh I know," she said lightly. "You don't like it that everyone here feels your being with me is the equivalent of a human shacking up with his mistress. Oh you're going to deny it?," she added when he opened his mouth to protest. "Really Nicolas?"

"This isn't the way I wanted it to be," Nicolas repeated softly. "I want you to feel at home here, I want this to be your home -"

"Do you know her scent is all over the place?" Shura blurted all at once. "Lara's scent. Do you know that the chamber where you wanted me to go to ground with you is steeped in her smell? This place that you want me to live in, to feel at home in, is full of her things. Of people linked to her. Of her presence. Of her scent. This whole place reeks of her. _You_ reek of her."

Nicolas caught his breath in dismay. Instantly he willed his clothes away and new ones to replace them but Shura only made an impatient noise and turned away. _The scent was on him, not just his clothes._

"Forgive me," he said, truly distressed now. He realized suddenly that Shura had been raised wolfen, and to all lupine - scent equaled territory. By the gods, no wonder she'd been avoiding him. Of course Lara's scent was all over him - he had been seeing her often of late, eager to see if a cure could be derived from the human medicines Shura had provided. No, that hadn't been the only reason - he had to admit he had also been using it as an excuse to check on her, to make sure Lara was all right. Lara had been fragile for much of the time that they had been together, what with her work with the extremophiles and his being unable to claim her fully. Shura, on the other hand, was such a resilient little soul, and he had made the mistake of assuming she would be able to handle the sealing of their bond and all the strange emotions and upheavals it brought with it with the same aplomb with which she had handled the other upheavals of her young life.

He had not realized that Lara physically leaving their home had not been enough to erase her presence. Wittingly or unwittingly Lara had left her mark on the place. On him. He knew Shura understood the circumstances very well, knew that she had nothing personal against Lara. But their bond was so different - his new young mate was actually capable of keeping things from him. He hadn't picked up or realized that moving her into territory that another female had marked could be so distressing to someone who had been raised in the manner of the wolf.

He was an ass.

"_Forgive me."_

"And what purpose would that serve?" the girl replied, not looking at him. "It won't change anything."

"Shura…"

"What do you want from me, Nicolas?"

"I want us to be together for real."

She turned to him at last. "Together for real?" her expression was truly bewildered. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm here, aren't I?"

"It's more than just being here. There's so much we need to work out, Shura."

"What's to work out? You and everyone here have made it really clear that I have no right to you. I get it and I know I have to live with it. I'm not stupid, Nicolas."

"No right to me?" Nicolas was incredulous. "You're my mate!"

She shook her head. "I have no clue what that means, other than the fact that a piece of me seems to be attached to you and when you're missing it goes missing, too. I know you don't want me here. Nobody does. _I_ don't want me here. The only reason I haven't left is that I'm afraid it will do to you what Skyler's absence did to my brother. I couldn't live with that."

The straightforward admission was like a dagger sliding into Nicolas' heart. It became difficult to even speak. "Shura, I am a complete idiot for not figuring this out, but why did you not say anything?"

"Because I have no right to say anything!," was the candid reply. "I'm the usurper, remember? I have no right to complain that everything here has her mark - after all I just stole it from her, right? Like I stole you from her? So I have no right to tell you that the smell of her on you - even the sound of you speaking her name drives me insane. All right? Satisfied? I know I have no right to you! You've made that perfectly clear by wearing her scent on you every day since you supposedly claimed me." With that she slapped her palms onto her face to cover it and buried her face in her lap, humiliated at her own admission, mortified by her pathetic lack of control, her shame and guilt so great she shook with it.

Nicolas said no more, just slid long arms around her and drew her to him. Where she belonged. She tried to pull away but he wouldn't let her, kept her tight and trapped against his big warm chest, his face against her hair. Inhaling her scent, that smell of leaves and rain and sunshine - noone he had ever known had ever smelled of sunshine.

"I love you," he said softly, his lips moving against her temple. He felt her grow still for a moment but all at once she was trying to get free again. He loosened his grip enough so she could pull back and he could look down into her face, but not enough to let her out of the circle of his arms.

"Enough of the lip service, Nicolas," she said to him."For once have the guts to speak the truth, not what you think is the 'right"thing to say."

"I know you don't believe me," he put in. "Because I haven't done much to show you, have I? I rip you from your home, from everything you've known and bring you to this place where the memories are bad and you think everyone is hostile towards you."

"I think? So now I'm delusional?"

He shook his head, lifted his hand to push her hair back. "No. I thought everyone would make you feel welcome but that's not happening is it?" His fingers trailed down her cheek and Shura fought hard between wanting to evade his touch and wanting to lean into it. Evading won. For the moment.

"I never meant for you to be uncomfortable here, Shura, I swear it. My only thought was for your safety. Now I realize that not only are you not all that safe here, you are totally miserable. On top of that you think I hate being with you. You think I hate _you_."

"I don't think," she said, at last finding the strength to shove herself away from him. "I know."

"I know how sensitive you are to my emotions. But you're misinterpreting them, Shura."

"What's to misinterpret? Every time I'm near everything I feel from you is colored black with guilt and shame. You going to deny it?"

"None of that is directed at you."

"Oh so I'm not supposed to take it personally? Really?"

"I feel the same things from you, Shura."

Her mouth fell open in shock and it would have been comical had the situation not been so dire. "Me? What do you expect me to feel? The first time you recognized the bond you threw me into the ocean and accused me of plotting to break you and Lara up! Every time you leave you come back with her smell all over you. I'm the intruder and nothing I can say or do will change that. Given a choice you would have chosen her. You would still choose her."

Nicolas pressed his hand to her flushed cheek, now truly aware of what it was like to hurt on another's behalf. "I cannot deny that in the beginning it would have been as you say," he said softly, honestly. "But no longer, Shura. _You_ are my mate."

He saw in her eyes that she didn't believe him. Oh how it stung to realize that his arms had no capacity to comfort his own mate, his words no power to reassure. But how much more painful for her? He had been trying to close the circle with Lara - and because he had done so he now knew that he no longer felt the way he did when they were bonded. Although he would always cherish his former mate his new sun was Shura, and, guilt or no guilt, his life now revolved around her. He understood now that, for all Shura's sensitivity to his emotions and thoughts, his behavior had bewildered and confused and hurt her. Despite the bond she had zero expectations of him and that realization was killing him.

"I understand that nothing I can say will reassure you," he said quietly. "And that pains me more than you will ever know. All I can do now is to stop talking and start trying to change things." He reached out and touched her hand, not trying to take it, just lightly caressing the backs of her fingers. Again she drew back, evading his touch. Nicolas sighed and looked her square in the eye. "Will you trust me, Shura? Will you come with me?"

"Where?," she asked, frowning.

He reached for her hand and this time would not let it go when she tugged. "Please will you trust me on this? Things need to change and we need to make an important first step. Please will you come with me?"

Shura sighed a weary sigh.

* * *

Some months later Shura thought back on that day on that hilltop in Brazil. A sad day it had been, of bitter truths and cold reality. Today she was sitting on a different rock on a different hilltop and the changed view seemed to reflect all that had changed in her life since then.

She scanned the darkening horizon with her far-seeing eyes. This view was not all unfamiliar to her - she had lived here intermittently with her brothers when she was very young. It wasn't home exactly, but it had been a good stopping-place. Truth was Shura had never thought of home in terms of physical location. Home to her had always simply been wherever her brothers were. She turned and smiled at the lean tall figure who ambled over and settled down beside her on the rock. He slipped a long arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

"So thoughtful, _malinkaya_. Should I be worried?"

"No," Shura replied and nestled against her brother Dimitri like a kitten. She sighed and realized that this was one thing that had _not _changed.

Home to her was still wherever her brothers were.

* * *

Nicolas leaned against the wall, waiting impatiently. At last the person he was waiting for stepped out of the revolving doors and walked up to him

"It's done?"

"It's done," confirmed the newcomer.

"How long before the medicines go into mass production?"

The young man smiled a little. "It's hardly mass production, Nicolas. There are too few Carpathians left to merit mass production. This is a small "special" order. That's why it was so expensive."

"The cost doesn't matter if it will immunize us against Xavier's extremophiles. How long?"

"A week. Maybe ten days."

Nicolas nodded in satisfaction. "Was -" he hesitated. "- she - there?"

"You mean Lara?" Again his companion's lips quirked. "You can say her name you know. Yes, she was there."

"Is she well?"

"She is well." His companion's light brown eyes bored into him. "You can go see her you know. There's no need for you to avoid her."

Nicolas sighed. "It's for the best for all involved."

The young man looked at him and lifted his hands briefly. "If you say so."

* * *

Shura looked up at her brother. "That was a quick trip. How's Jasmine doing?"

"She's fine."

"She's handling the baby better now?"

"Much better. He's a handful."

"Getting you to teach Jasmine how to handle a jaguar baby was one of Mary Anne's better ideas."

Dimitri smiled. "Yes, it was."

Shura glanced sideways at him. "Is she moving in any time soon?" she asked meaningfully.

It was a moment before her brother replied. "We're taking it slow." He glanced at her and mussed her hair. "As you already know."

Shura grinned at him. "I'm really happy for you."

"Yes, you've told me many times." He kissed her brow and drew her close against his side.

"You're not sure about this, are you?"

"No," he admitted softly. It had been strange to develop feelings for a female after having lived through the intensity of being bonded to another. Strange and a little frightening. In that way he had been able to empathize with Nicolas. "But is anybody really sure of anything?" He turned to his sister and asked pointedly."Are _you_ sure of what _you're_ doing?"

Shura's lips quirked. "No." She blew out a breath. "It feels right, though."

Dimitri nodded and then shrugged in his fatalistic way. "That's all we can ask for, isn't it?"

She nodded slowly and they grinned at each other. After all that had happened between them, they were delighted that it felt like old times.

That return to the way they had been before Shura's breaking of his lifebond had set off a fateful chain of events, was hard-won. Nicolas, realizing his folly at having brought her to live in Brazil where Lara's mark was fresh on everything, had brought her back to live with her brothers. He had talked to Dimitri even before he and Shura had had their confrontation – for he had realized that she was completely unprotected during daytime. Here she at least had the company of her other brother Stas, whose mixed blood also allowed him to walk in daylight. And here, without the strain of being in a place where she had almost died, of being among people who did not seem ready to welcome her, Shura had let her guards down. When they had first come back to Russia, she had thought Nicolas would leave her there by herself but, no, he was determined to make things between them work and had moved there to be with her. They had lived separately from, but close to, her brothers and things had taken a more natural course. Conscious of how badly he had initially handled their situation, Nicolas had at first been cautious and had kept a respectful distance until Shura, unable to bear his guilt, had sat him down and given him a talking to.

_"Nicolas, enough. Stop tiptoeing around me."_

_Nicolas shook his head. "I don't know what to do to make up for what happened. I know you've been hurt."_

_She nodded. "Yes. But you were hurt too. And there's no changing that now." She blew out a breath. "I'm tired of fighting this lifemate thing. Artificial or not it's there and it doesn't seem to want to go away. I now believe that no patience will wear it out. There's no changing what happened. But I think I'm going to have to take my own advice and get over it." She fell silent then, at a loss for words._

_"What are you saying?" he whispered when the silence had gone on too long._

_Shura turned to him and spoke humbly. "I'm saying that if you'll have me, I'll try to be your lifemate for real."_

_"If I'll have you?" Nicolas' voice was incredulous. "Shura..."_

_"No more guilt, Nicolas. No more tiptoeing around me. I feel your terror of offending me every time the subject of Lara is broached. I don't hate her and I won't break apart if you say her name, you know. And please please no more apologies. I forgive you. But you'll have to forgive me, too."_

_"For what?'_

_"You know being with me is going to make your life hell don't you?"_

_This time Nicolas' voice shook audibly. "Your life's been hell, too. If only -"_

_Shura turned and shushed him before he could finish his sentence. "Stop apologizing," she said pressing gentle fingers to his face, his lips. " No more guilt, Nicolas."_

_He closed his eyes at her touch. "I just ..."_

_Suddenly, as if to silence him, she pressed her mouth lightly to his, a soft caress of lips. It was brief , very, very soft, more a touch than a kiss, but Nicolas froze, stunned as the simple gesture shook him to his soul. He felt her own surprise at what she had done. She pulled back but it was too late. Their bond had flared to raging life. _

Things were not the same after that.

Stas came ambling up with Nicolas, stretching his long arms above his head. "What are you girls yapping about?"

"Not much," Shura replied. Nicolas came up behind her, his hand moving to the small of her back.

"Mission accomplished?" Dimitri asked the newcomers, with his usual economy of of words.

Nicolas nodded. "Stas handled it very well. All arrangements have been made and the medicines will be manufactured soon. And then maybe we'll be rid of the threat of the extremophiles." Almost unconsciously, he rubbed his cheek lightly against Shura's hair and she leaned into him in response.

"What a great evening," Stas said, taking in the crisp, cool air, the canopy of stars. "Let's run!" He glanced sideways at Shura, who looked at him out of the corner of her eye, suddenly alert.

Without warning, Stas took off at a dead run, his blast of speed an open challenge. With a happy yelp, Shura leapt off the rock and sprinted after him.

Dimitri and Nicolas exchanged amused glances and laughing, they took off after the two, their greater strength and speed allowing them to close in on the younger pair before they reached the edge of the precipice. Running up between them, Dimitri caught Stas and Shura by the shoulders and Shura grabbed Nicolas' hand just as they leapt together off the rocky overhang. Shifting in midair, they landed on furry paws and three wolves and a jaguar ran in synchrony off into the night.


End file.
